


Stranger Than Fiction

by erelis



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-22 23:16:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 131,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4854365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erelis/pseuds/erelis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inexplicably bereft of their memories and on the run from something they don’t remember, Cullen and Dorian must figure out who they are, where they are, and what happened to them to leave them in such a sorry state. Preferably before one or both of them gets killed. Unfortunately for them, nothing in Thedas is ever that easy. Or goes according to plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by a prompt I saw while browsing the Dragon Age kink meme. To quickly sum it up, the OP had asked for a Cullen/Dorian amnesia fic where they’re forced to figure out who they are while navigating a relationship they don’t understand, amidst setting appropriate drama and various interpersonal challenges. This doesn’t follow the prompt exactly, and I’ve changed a few things, but that’s where the general idea came from.

A stinging slap across his cheek startled a curse out of him as he instinctively flinched to the side, nearly losing his footing on the slick leaves that littered the ground beneath his feet. For one precarious, heart-stopping second, he thought he was going to go down. And if he broke his ankle now—or worse, his leg—there was no chance he was going to be able to get away. Fortunately, he regained his balance before his sudden lurch became a true tumble and was able to keep going with only a momentary loss of speed.

This time, he had the presence of mind to keep his hands in front of his face, ready to push aside any other branches that might be stretched across his path, invisible in the darkness. He hadn’t just narrowly avoided a fall only to knock himself unconscious and end this mad dash through the forest in the most embarrassing way possible.

“ _Try_ to be quiet, would you?” The man’s voice came from somewhere close behind him, soft and slightly out of breath. “I really don’t want to die tonight.”

He almost bit through his tongue stifling the yelp of surprise that tried to claw its way out of his throat at the unexpected sound. Unwilling to leave his back unprotected, he lunged away, twisting around to face the man as well as he could in the dark. Had it been daytime or the ground not so wet, if he’d been walking instead of running, he probably would have pulled it off. But his earlier luck didn’t hold; his heel slid mid-turn and despite a frantic attempt to remain upright, he toppled to the ground.

There was no searing flash of agony from a bone breaking or stabbing pain from something sharp sliding into his flesh. There was just the unyielding impact of hitting the ground and the dull, white nothing of his lungs trying to fill with air that wasn’t there. Yet even then, winded and practically blind, his panic was too strong to grant him a few seconds to recuperate. His hand shot out, scrabbling in the dirt, reaching for a weapon—a rock, a stick, anything with which he could defend himself—as he struggled to catch his breath.

In the absence of the sound of his own breathing, he could hear the footsteps of the man who’d been behind him approaching where he lay. They were slow and careful, though whether the man was trying not to join him on the ground or was wary of being attacked if he got too close, he didn’t know. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was keeping enough distance to defend himself. What mattered was finally sucking in a harsh breath and loosening the constriction in his chest.

“Are you all right?” The man, little more than a darker shadow against the canopy of leaves and night sky above them, sounded mildly concerned and less mildly wary.

“Who are you?” It came out sharper than he’d intended, but he was too busy sorting himself out and rolling over onto his knees to care. “Why are you chasing me?”

“I…”  The man stopped abruptly. A rustle of cloth and the shifting of the shadow before him told him that the man was shaking his head. “I’m not chasing you.”

He snorted in disbelief. “Am I to believe you regularly take nighttime runs through the forest?”

“Do _you_?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to retort with a vehement _no_ , but before the word could leave his mouth, he realized that he didn’t truly know what he did regularly. There were no memories of his typical evening activities rushing into his mind to show the question for the ludicrous thing that it was. And when he tried to remember what was chasing him, or why he was being chased in the first place, he came up with nothing.

All he knew was that staying in one place wasn’t safe. That he had to keep moving if he didn’t want to die a slow, painful, and above all horrific death. And while the panic that had been driving him hadn’t abated, save for the brief moment when he thought he’d been discovered, it hadn’t gotten worse in the presence of this stranger either.

He wasn’t willing to trust the word of a man he couldn’t even see properly, but his instincts weren’t recoiling from him. If the stranger was part of whatever terrifying thing had prompted his flight, he figured he would probably be more afraid than he was right now. He also didn’t think the man would be inquiring as to whether he was all right if he just planned to torture and murder him later. Whoever he was, it seemed likely that in this, at least, he was telling the truth.

“No,” he answered finally, heaving himself to his feet. It wasn’t a lie if he didn’t know he was lying and he didn’t have the time or the mental resources to devote to trying to ascertain the truth. “And I don’t have time to chat.”

Already turning to continue on, he was halted by a hand on his arm. “Wait.”

“What?”

Obviously sensing that he wasn’t poised to take off the instant he let him go, the stranger took his hand away. “Maybe it would be better if we stayed together.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“We’re both going in the same direction, yes? And we’re both running, possibly away from the same thing.” A tiny pause followed, as if he was waiting for him to put it together. When he remained silent, he heard a frustrated sigh. “Safety in numbers. I watch your back, you watch mine, and neither of us dies tonight. Or tomorrow, hopefully.”

It was similar to what he’d heard earlier, when the man had first spoken to him, and now that his heart wasn’t pounding quite so fast and he wasn’t utterly consumed by the unthinking need to _get away_ , it dawned on him that maybe they were in the same predicament. Maybe they _were_ fleeing the same thing. If that was true, it probably couldn’t hurt to ally with each other. It had to be better than facing whatever horror lurked behind them alone.

Moreover, maybe this man could fill in the holes in his memory that seemed to be getting larger every time he gave them a curious prod. Once they found a safe place to stop, at any rate.

“Fine.” Perhaps he could have tried to sound a bit friendlier, but that was too trivial a detail to cross his mind at the moment. “Just keep up."

It may have been the faint sound of the other man drawing in a breath that told him he was getting ready to reply or it could have been some kind of instinctive recognition of time about to be wasted in unnecessary chatter; whatever the case, he turned before the stranger could get started and set off once more. The first few steps amounted to a slow jog, as he did a cursory evaluation for injuries sustained in the fall, but they quickly lengthened into a loping run as he found everything in working order.

After a moment, he heard the thud of booted feet against the dirt and the whispery rustle of disturbed leaves as his unanticipated companion fell into step behind him.

*     *     *     *     *

He could not be sure exactly how long they ran. Without a point from which to start, any sense of where they were going, or a clear view of the sky—that likely would not have been terribly informative even if he could see it properly—he had only the steadily intensifying ache in his muscles and growing fatigue with which to estimate the passage of time. It could have been hours. More worrying was the paranoid notion that a single hour was an optimistic, and wholly unrealistic, guess.

They didn’t speak much to each other, not unless it was to call out in warning about a stretch of uneven ground or an obstruction in the path. It was too difficult to maintain their current speed and talk, much less divert attention to awkward conversation when it needed to remain on making sure no one stepped in a hole, fell over an embankment, or otherwise got injured to the point of being incapable of continuing on.

Running through the woods in the middle of the night, he had decided early on, was not an experience he ever wanted to repeat. It was too treacherous, yet neither man had wanted to be the first to call a halt. There had been no sign of pursuit, no hint as to the identity of whatever was chasing them, but they couldn’t be sure they weren’t being followed. Not yet. So they pushed on, splashing through streams, fighting through underbrush, sliding down hillsides, and ducking an intolerable number of overhanging tree limbs.

Along the way, he’d discovered—quite by accident—that he wasn’t as unarmed as he’d first assumed. It had been shortly after the decision to go in the same direction. He’d been scrabbling over a bit of deadfall when he’d felt his forward momentum abruptly arrested. His first thought, shot through with fear and nearly drowned out by the thunderous beating of his heart, had been that he’d been caught. That they’d found him. Thankfully, before he could start shouting and make a complete fool of himself, he reached out and found that it wasn’t an eldritch horror with its claws wrapped around his ankle that was holding him up but a sword, _his_ sword, caught in the V of two crisscrossed branches. It had taken only a moment to wrench it free and then he was moving again.

Knowing that he wasn’t entirely defenseless was a comfort, though it wasn’t enough of one that he could convince himself that speed was no longer of the essence. Inspecting the sword and informing his companion of its presence, both of these things could wait until they were no longer in danger. Until then, he focused on putting one foot in front of the other and keeping the length of metal from getting tangled up in anything else.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, the sky began to lighten. At first, it had seemed like wishful thinking, a trick of his weary body trying to coax him into a false sense of security so that he would call a halt and finally rest. But as he began to see details in the dark shapes of the trees, rocks, and bushes around him, he knew it was real.

Dawn had come.

“Looks like we made it,” he said, surprising himself by breaking the silence.

“What?”

He looked over as the other man moved into his line of sight. In the dim light, he could see that he had short hair and that there was a weapon of some sort strapped to his back. Unable to get a good glimpse of it, he couldn’t tell if it was a bow or a staff.

“What you said earlier,” he clarified, gesturing toward the lightening sky. “We made it to tomorrow.”

“Hm.” From the sound of it, he was surprised. “So we did.” For a moment, he was silent. Then, when it seemed like that was all he was going to say, he added, “I don’t suppose you’d like to try for tomorrow?”

He was tired, confused, and aching from so much exertion. He thought he might commit an act of violence for a simple glass of water. But the nonchalant hopefulness of the question still made him laugh, a short burst of sound that seemed startlingly loud in the otherwise quiet morning. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

“Excellent!” For a man who’d spent his entire night running through the underbrush, he sounded remarkably cheerful. “Now, what do you say we look for somewhere to rest? Maybe you can keep going like this forever, but I for one can’t.”

Something inside him balked at the idea of stopping even as the rest of him wanted to sigh in relief. Stopping, that wary part of him insisted, was bad. It would allow their pursuers to catch up to them. Especially now, with it getting lighter by the second, they would be easier to find. But if they collapsed from exhaustion, they would be captured for sure if they were found. At least if they were rested, they might stand a chance of fighting back.

“All right.” He slowed his pace to look around and beside him, his companion did the same. “It’s probably too much to hope that there are caves nearby. So we need to find cover. Trees, brush, I’m not picky. High ground, preferably, but I’ll take concealment over clear sightlines. If we can find a stream, even better, but I’m not holding my breath.”

It was the prickling at the back of his neck more than movement glimpsed from the corner of his eye that told him the other man was looking at him. “So you _do_ do this often.”

“What do you mean?”

“This.” The shadowy flicker of motion that accompanied the word had to be hand gesture. “Trek through the wilderness. Camp and whatnot.”

“I…” He frowned, testing the veracity of the notion. It didn’t _feel_ right. He couldn’t say why he felt that way or what it might mean but the prospect of excessive outdoor living wasn’t one that particularly appealed to him. After a slight pause, he shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know?” He would have expected that question to be suspicious, but the man only sounded thoughtful. Maybe a little concerned.

“No.” A sharper, suffocating bolt of panic surged through him, but he refused to let himself give in to it. This wasn’t the time or the place. _Later,_ he told himself. _I can figure it out later._ _Right now, we need to get to safety._ “Come on. It’ll keep until we find somewhere safe for a couple hours.”

*     *     *     *     *

Despite low expectations and a noticeable lack of optimism, it didn’t actually take very long to find a decent place to stop for a few hours’ rest. The sun had just crested the horizon when the stranger elbowed him in the side and pointed to a cluster of large rocks piled together against the side of a hill. It wasn’t the defensible shelter of a cave, but it looked like it would provide them with enough concealment that he didn’t feel too nervous about deeming it suitable. There was even a stream nearby; little more than a trickle, really, yet it offered an adequate supply of clean running water for both men to drink their fill. It wouldn’t do for the long-term, not when they were still worried about being discovered, but for a day, perhaps two at most if their weary bodies proved unwilling to cooperate, it would serve.

“Go ahead and sleep for a bit,” he said as they settled into the little crevice tucked between the rocks. “I'll keep watch.”

It wasn’t so large that they could walk around or even lay down, but they could sit side by side, and as the one with the more fearsome weapon—in the light of the sun, it turned out that the other man's weapon was an oddly constructed staff with a short blade at the end—he’d positioned himself at the opening, sword set across his folded knees and ready to be picked up at the first hint of trouble. If their pursuers came upon them, he would engage them and, he hoped, prove to be a sufficient distraction to allow his companion to escape.

“Just like that?” the man asked, looking at him with raised eyebrows.

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “One of us has to stand watch. Might as well be me.”

“Why is that?”

Opening his mouth to reply, he discovered that he really didn’t have a good answer. He felt like he ought to, like it was there hovering just at the tip of his tongue, but try though he might, he couldn’t form the words. It was frustrating and alarming to not be able to explain himself, to reach for the memory and find only wisps of impressions and feelings that he couldn’t translate. Still, the fact remained that it _felt_ right that he should be the one to guard the other man’s slumber.

“I have a sword,” he said instead of attempting to convey the inexplicable. He tapped his fingertip against the blade, just in case the man needed reminding of its presence.

“And you know how to use it, do you?” The question sounded as skeptical as the challenging look the man shot him through his narrowed eyes.

He rolled his own. “Why would I be carrying it if I didn’t know how to use it?”

The man shrugged. “Perhaps to give bandits reason to reevaluate the wisdom in attacking you?”

Bracing himself for something ludicrous, he had to admit that that sounded reasonable. Not _right_ as it pertained to him, but certainly not the most foolish suggestion the man could make. At least if he had to be on the run with someone he didn’t know, he was doing it with someone who was more than halfway clever. 

“I know how to use a sword,” he retorted peevishly, feeling the tension in his shoulders that would turn into a defensive hunch if he let it. He didn’t.

“Are you sure?” the man pressed. And was it his imagination or was there a flicker of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth? In the dim light and the shadows beneath his moustache, it was difficult to tell. “You don’t seem sure of much.”

A faint prickle of irritation went through him. “Yes,” he said shortly, biting back something a bit less polite than the single word.

He looked away from him, needing the illusion of space if nothing else, and found himself staring at his hand, which was slowly starting to curl into a fist. Forcing the muscles to relax—a minor bit of annoying mockery wasn’t worth getting into a fight over, especially in these circumstances—he turned his hand over and straightened out his fingers, noticing the calluses on the palm for the first time. He experimentally rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and felt the telltale deadened sensation and mild roughness of more of them. _Ha!_ He thought triumphantly, tamping down the smile he could feel itching at his mouth. _Told you!_

“Yes,” he said again, more decisively this time, and lifted the hand to show him his palm and the calluses that a man who did in fact use a sword with some regularity would develop. “Look.”

The man looked, but he didn’t look very impressed at the sight before him. Rather, he looked amused. “Your smugness would be more convincing if you hadn’t just discovered that convenient proof.”

“I did not.”

The smug bastard was openly smirking now. “Of course you did.” He reached out and patted him consolingly on the forearm. “Don’t worry. It’ll be our little secret.”

Huffing, refusing to allow himself to be even remotely amused by it and give the man a bigger head than he already seemed to have, he changed the subject. “Since you fancy yourself the one holding all the cards, mind evening the playing field a little and telling me your name?”

Because he was looking at him, honestly curious, he noticed the flash of uncertain panic that passed swiftly across the man’s face. A muscle in his jaw twitched, like he was forcing himself to keep his mouth closed against an instinctive response, and he swallowed with an obvious bob of his throat.

“Ah, well…” It sounded like he was temporizing and the way he licked his lips looked as though he was stalling for time. “That’s the question for the ages, isn’t it?”

“And I’m hoping it doesn’t take you one to provide an answer,” he said dryly.

“Perhaps you ought to go first,” the man suggested, sounding as though he was shooting for urbane but falling just shy of hitting it.

“I don’t know.”

There it was. Quietly acknowledged and out in the open.

He felt a sinking sense of dread in his chest as he made the admission of what he’d come to realize on their frantic race through the forest, yet at the same time, he couldn’t deny that saying it out loud eased some of its weight from his shoulders. He didn’t know his name, couldn’t remember where he’d been prior to that night or what he was running away from. When he reached for the memory of _anything_ beyond the last night, he turned up nothing. No childhood, no home, no family or friends, no sense of anything to which he needed to return. Just a terrifyingly blank slate, like he’d miraculously popped into existence less than twelve hours ago.

The slyly amused smirk disappeared from the other man’s face. For a moment that seemed to stretch endlessly outward until the tension almost became unbearable, the two of them regarded one another. He was about to break the silence himself, say something, anything to get a response, even if it was a sarcastic one, when the other man did it for him.

“I don’t either.”

Suddenly, he didn’t feel quite so exhausted anymore.

After a moment’s heavy silence, he murmured under his breath, “It can’t be a coincidence.”

The other man laughed a quiet, not entirely humor-filled laugh. “Oh no? Two men running through a forest in the middle of the night with no memory of who they are or what they’re fleeing doesn’t seem like a coincidence to you?”

“So you don’t remember that either.” It wasn’t a question. Sighing, he pressed a hand to his forehead, scratching his fingers back through his hair. It felt like there was the beginning of a headache forming, but he suspected that it was just because he was tired. And probably still more than a little dehydrated, hastily gulped down drink from the stream notwithstanding.

He looked at him then, carefully studying his face. The light in their tiny alcove wasn’t the best, but he couldn’t see any bruises on his skin or flecks of dried blood that might suggest a head injury. With the exception of the possibly brewing headache, he couldn’t feel any pain of his own. _Which means what?_

One dark eyebrow arched under his scrutiny. “Don’t like what you see?”

“What?” He dropped his hand back to his knee, frowning in confusion before realizing that the man was referring to his staring. “No, it’s not—” With a wordless noise of self-directed frustration, he shook his head. “You aren’t hurt.”

The second eyebrow joined the first. “Should I be worried that you almost sound disappointed?”

He blew out his breath. “ _No_ ,” he ground out through clenched teeth, keeping a tight rein on the flare of his temper so that he didn’t actually snap at the man. “I _meant_ that it doesn’t look like your memory loss is from a head wound. And it doesn’t feel like mine is either.”

From the faint contortion of his face, it looked like the man was chewing absently on the inside of his cheek. “Which leaves what, I wonder?” he muttered, unknowingly echoing his companion’s thoughts only moments ago.

“I don’t know, but whatever it was, it didn’t take _everything_ away from us.” He made a loose gesture between the two of them. “We know how to talk. We’re speaking the same language. We know we’re running from something...” His voice trailed off as he ran out of points of knowledge he was sure they both possessed.

"And that seems to be _all_ we know." It wasn't quite sarcastic, but it wasn't overly optimistic either. "Not exactly a glowing testimonial of our current predicament, is it?"

"It's better than not knowing anything at all."

The man shook his head, breathing out in a quiet huff. "How positive you are."

He cocked his head, glancing at him askance. "If you'd like me to be pessimistic and dire, I can certainly try." It really wasn't the sort of situation that called for jokes, but in lieu of any alternative but predictions of doom, gloom, and possibly starving to death in the wilderness, he found himself adding, in a suitably grave tone, "Best make your peace with the Maker now. We're probably going to die out here."

Unexpectedly, the man started laughing. It didn't last long and it wasn't loud, but it left the ghost of a smile hovering on his mouth after he stopped. "I'll thank you not to sass me during our hour of need, ser."

"I'll save it for afterward, shall I?"

That ghost of a smile solidified into a real one, large enough that it showed a flash of teeth. “Best not make promises you can’t keep, dear man.”

He laughed at that, a quiet chuckle under his breath. “Consider it motivation to survive the hour.”

“Well if _that’s_ how you want to look at it…” The man trailed off with a lopsided smile and a shake of his head. Stretching back against the unyielding rock behind them, he closed his eyes for a moment, then rolled his head to the side and opened them to look at him. The levity was gone, his voice and expression growing serious. “Are you quite certain you don’t want me to take first watch? It’s no trouble.”

“No, I—I’m tired, but I don’t think I could sleep yet. I’m still too…” He made a vague, unsteady rocking motion with his hand, trying to provide a visual explanation of his unquiet thoughts instead of haltingly putting it into words. “And I’d sleep easier knowing that we’ve got a semblance of a plan.” 

The other man frowned. "I wouldn't even know where to start." He paused for a moment, obviously mulling it over it. "Better shelter, certainly. Food. Proper clothing."

He couldn't object to any of those things. They needed somewhere they could stretch out and build a fire, preferably well away from the forest in which they'd found themselves. Although he wasn't terribly hungry yet, he knew he would be soon. And the clothing they were wearing—long sleeved tunics, trousers, and boots—was hardly appropriate for the temperature. When they'd been running and too preoccupied with survival to care about how chilly the air was, it hadn't been that pressing of an issue. Now, with the sweat long since cooled from his skin and no activity to distract him from it, he could feel the chill seeping through the fabric of his clothes.

Wherever they'd been, whatever they'd been doing, it was clear that they hadn't had the time or opportunity to pack provisions for travel or outfit themselves in attire suitable for protection against the elements. It spoke of a hasty departure, or possibly one made on the spur of the moment, with just enough time to grab a weapon. And they'd been together when they'd started running. It had seemed to be the case earlier, with both of them heading in the same direction with the same sense of panic, and the suspicion was cemented now, given their collective lack of preparedness.  

"Are you cold?" If he was cold, the other man, who appeared to be marginally slighter of build, surely was, but he felt it only polite to ask.

"A little."

Considering how cold _he_ was, he suspected that that was something of an understatement. He hesitated just briefly, then decided to go with the impulse and shifted, sliding his arm around the man's shoulders and drawing him closer to his side. It wasn't the same as lighting a fire, but until they could safely do so, sharing body heat was their only option.

"Is this all right?" he asked, ready to withdraw his arm at the first sign of his companion's discomfort.

But there was no stiffness in the man's shoulders, no attempt to lean away from him and reestablish some modicum of distance between them. Instead, he leaned into his side with a quirk to his lips that flirted with being an actual smirk. "Positive _and_ a gentleman. And to think I found you in the woods."

He snorted. "Perhaps _I_ found _you._ "

Not willing to concede the credit, the man responded with haughtiness so fake that no one would believe it sincere. "Or we found each other. In any case—"

"Get some sleep," he interrupted, sensing that the friendly bickering could continue until they both fell asleep in the middle of it. "I'll try to think of something." Now it was his turn to offer a smirk, and smugly add, "If I can't, you'll have something to do when it's your turn to keep watch."

A puff of warm air brushed over the exposed skin at his throat as the man uttered a quiet chuckle. He squirmed slightly, getting comfortable, then laid his head against his shoulder. "You're going to leave it all to me, aren't you?"

"I guess that makes you the smart one," he volleyed back, merely teasing. The man did seem smart, that wasn't in question, but he had no intention of doing nothing with the time he was going to spend keeping an eye on the opening of their poor substitute for a cave. "I'll wake you in..."

It occurred to him that he had no idea how to measure the passage of time. His view of the sky was practically non-existent. He was going to have to use the shadows cast by the nearby trees and bushes to make a guess. After staring at the shadows visible beyond the edge of the rock, he said uncertainly, "A bit. Sorry."

"That's all right." He gave his arm another quick pat. "I intend to wake you when I get bored."

He huffed a silent chuckle. "Fair enough."

*     *     *     *     *

How long he'd been standing there, he didn't know. He had a dim sense of the passage of time, but when he tried to focus on it, it slipped from his awareness like water through his fingers. It was a large room with a vaulted ceiling and sweeping, ornate archways around the doors and windows. The furniture was heavy and elaborate, clearly expensive, and the walls were lined with shelves near to bursting with books. From the look of it, it was a library or a study of significantly wealthy individual who, it seemed, had an affinity for dragons.

He could see a few statues—a tiny one on the expansive desk and a larger one tucked into a corner—and one particularly large painting. It wasn't very subtle. But then again, nothing about the room was. The richness of the decor and the number of leather-bound books made a bold statement of wealth and power that the owner obviously wanted visitors to recognize. _He_ didn't feel very cowed by it. Faintly exasperated, maybe, but undeniably comfortable with and not the least bit intimidated by the opulence. Or at least, he would have been comfortable if the slight greenish haze to the candlelight flickering in the sconces didn't lend itself to a peculiar sense of unease.

Something about the place wasn't quite right, though why that might be so was something he couldn't put his finger on.

Making up his mind to explore the room and hopefully discover the reason for being there, he was interrupted before he could get started by the soft, metallic click of the doorknob set in the door directly across from him. Instinctively, he tensed, though if whoever walked through the doorway meant him harm, he had no weapon with which to defend himself. But it wasn't guards or monsters or something significantly worse. It was a young man with closely cropped black hair and tanned skin. He smiled when he saw him, a friendly expression that spoke of long familiarity, and quickly crossed the rug-covered floor to reach his side.

"You're here!" He greeted him, drawing him into an embrace that he found perplexing and strange. Did he know this young man? From the reception he was getting, the answer was yes, but he couldn't put a name to the face and the odd sense of disquiet hadn't gone away. In fact, it had intensified at his arrival. "Where have you been?"

Stiff in the stranger's arms, he took the first opportunity to back away and reestablish a respectable amount of distance between them. It earned him a puzzled frown, but he didn't care. There was something subtly _wrong_ about all of this, though he still couldn't say why he felt that way.

"I haven't the faintest idea," he replied with false cheerfulness, like it hardly mattered. "Have you been waiting long?" Until he could suss out where he was, who this man was, and what was going on, it couldn't hurt to play nice.

The young man shrugged. "Long enough." His eyes narrowed then, a shrewd look that seemed incongruous with his age. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

How to answer that? He mulled it over for a moment, then affected a casual, almost disinterested shrug. "I suppose it slipped my mind."

They regarded each other in silence, he and this stranger that left him feeling... He couldn't quite pin down the emotion long enough to decide. Uneasy, perhaps. Disquiet. Ever so faintly distressed. There were subtler pangs of other things, but they were too easily overpowered and lost by their stronger counterparts to be identifiable.

"I can help you," the young man said finally, after he'd almost convinced himself that he wasn't going to say anything else. "I remember you, even if you don't."

It was on the tip of his tongue to demand answers to his questions, but something held him back. Some deep-seated, inexplicable distrust that practically screamed at him to reject the offer immediately. Not knowing the source of the instinct made it difficult to trust, but in a world where he couldn't be sure about trusting anyone else, he figured he ought to at least trust himself. Even if he remained largely a mystery to himself.

"Could you now?" He arched a brow, pursing his lips in a curious mien. "Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. I'm sure I'm a memorable man."

The man gestured toward one of the large wingback chairs arrayed before them. "Have a seat." There was a small table positioned by the chair. On it, he spied a glass of deep red liquid that was likely wine and a bowl of fruit. "Take refreshment. It's a long story."

It was a tempting offer. The chair _did_ look comfortable, plush and overstuffed and large enough to sprawl out on, and he was hungrier than he cared to think about. But the insidious sense of _wrong_ remained: in the presence of the other man, in the convenience of the offer of things he desperately wanted, even in the emerald tinge that suffused the light. It was too easy. And although he didn't remember his life to know whether he had justification in being so pessimistic and bitter about it, he believed that he wasn't wrong to think that nothing was ever this easy and if it was, then it was probably a lie or a trick or some other contrivance to make bad things worse.

"No," he declined with a short shake of his head. "I think I'd rather stand, if it's all the same to you."

He was half expecting the young man to be angry. Instead, he was surprised to see something that almost looked like the start of a smile just slightly curving his lips. "Still so disagreeable." It wasn't fond, precisely, but the tone hinted at the possibility that it could be. A predatory, possessive kind of fondness he couldn't begin to understand.

To that not-quite there smile, he offered a brilliant, faux pleased one of his own. "I do so like to live up to expectations."

A sharp smile flitted across his mouth. "It's going to be difficult, trying to make your way in a world you don't remember."

The more the young man insisted that it was going to be arduous if he didn't accept his help, the more certain he became that refusing it was a good idea. Perhaps it was just a perverse streak of contrariness that made him feel that way, but the sense of self-satisfied, oddly relieved pride his insistent refusal filled him with prevented him from changing his mind.

"I like a challenge."

The knowing glint in the other man's dark eyes suggested that he already knew that too. And didn't approve. "It will be dangerous. You don't know who's after you."

This time when he laughed, it was genuine, though a shade sarcastic. "I'm sure I'll find out." A beat later, he remarked thoughtfully, "And I'll have company. Rather attractive company, actually."

"Yet you don't remember him either." The man's voice hadn't changed, it was still calm and matter-of-fact, yet to his ears, it sounded slightly needled. Maybe he was projecting. "You don't know who he is. Or _what_ he is."

That sounded ominous. It sounded like it was _supposed_ to be ominous, which made him even less likely to rethink his stance on asking for help. "Then it sounds like I'll have another mystery to solve," he replied cheerfully, like he hadn't a care in the world. "At least it won't be dull. I do so hate being bored."

The man sighed. "It doesn't have to be this hard, you know."

Fake cheerfulness falling away, he regarded the man closely. "No," he said slowly. "I think it does."

They studied each other again, the silence stretching taut between them without ever succeeding in becoming overly uncomfortable or fraught with hostility. Like two adversaries regarding each other across the field of battle, recognizing that neither will give quarter to the other. He had no idea why the analogy struck him, nor did he know why he felt a grudging sort of painfully conflicted respect for the younger man, but there it was just the same.

Finally, the man shrugged. "Have it your way. Don't say I never tried to help you."

He smiled tightly, yet not without a hint of real humor. "I wouldn't dream of it."

"No?" Those dark eyes seemed deep and unfathomable now, so much older than the young face to which they belonged. "Wake up, then."

He blinked, surprised. Was he asleep? Was that why everything seemed so subtly _off_? He was opening his mouth to ask, but the world around him was already breaking apart, dissolving into green light and a muddled swirl of color that started to blacken around the edges.

"I'll give you this one for free." The young man's voice came to him from a distance, the tanned skin fading to grey. His hair was growing longer too, twisting and writhing above his head, shaping itself into...

He couldn't tell anymore. The green light was so bright he couldn't see anything at all. The whole thing was getting away from him. He tried to hang onto it, to force the words out of his mouth, but his body wouldn't respond to his demands. He couldn't find his voice any more than he could blink his eyes into focus. Just as everything went black, he heard the man's voice again, darker, deeper, and so much more melodious than it had been.

"For old time's sake."

*     *     *     *     *

He would never be certain how long he sat there, watching the shadow from the bush just beyond the rock in front of him slowly inch its way over the ground. It felt like forever. His back was starting to ache and his leg had finally given up the fight and had fallen asleep, but he wasn’t about to try to stretch any of it out. It hadn’t taken long at all for his companion to drift off to sleep, and once he had, his head had eventually drifted down to rest against his shoulder. The position wasn’t the kindest for his body; when he awoke, he was probably going to have a stiff neck. But even so, there was a kind of peace to his slumber and he didn't want to wake him. There was no telling when they'd get the chance to rest like this again.

True to his word, he spent the majority of his forced inactivity attempting to lay out a decent plan for their next few steps. Not knowing where they were, which direction to head in, or what lay ahead and behind them made the whole endeavor practically impossible. There might be some kind of town an hour's walk in one direction and nothing but wilderness for weeks in the other. If they chose wrong, all joking aside, they truly might die out there. Or perhaps they would end up back wherever they had started and would walk right into the clutches of whoever was after them.

It was a nerve-wracking situation and it made him restless with helpless anxiety. If he just had _one_ piece of the puzzle, perhaps this wouldn't all seem so futile. And it certainly didn't help that he felt responsible for his companion. Whether that was realistic or not didn't matter. He couldn't shake the sense that it was his duty to protect him and that to do any less would be an unforgivable failure. He didn't know himself very well, had no idea who he'd been before this, but one thing he was quickly coming to understand about himself was that he did not accept failure gracefully. Especially when that failure was his own.

_We're going to have to pick a direction and start walking,_ he eventually decided. _Sitting around debating it for hours is likely to be just as dangerous as leaving it to chance. At least we'll be doing something, instead of waiting to be found._ It wasn't a great plan. It barely qualified as a plan at all. But faced with the choice of action or inaction, he came down heavily on the side of the former. From what admittedly little he knew of the man with him, he suspected that he would probably feel the same.

Ever so carefully, determined not to jostle the sleeping man, he tipped his head first to one side, then the other, hoping to ease some of the ache building in his neck. Something popped, but that was the extent of it. Still, he reasoned, it was better than nothing.

Until he felt the body leaning against him stiffen and shift away. Silently cursing his restlessness, he glanced over as the man lifted his head and blinked sleep from his eyes.

"Did I wake you?" he asked softly, hoping that if he had, remaining quiet would allow the man to more easily get back to sleep.

"What?" He was looking around as if uncertain where he was, a faint, confused frown turning down the corners of his mouth. By the time the arc of his gaze returned to him, the frown was deeper.

"I'm sorry. I can—"

A quiet murmur interrupted him. "Felix." 

His eyebrow rose. "Hm?"

"That's..." The man began, only to fall silent a moment later and shake his head.

"What?" He inquired gently.

"I just..." It was another false start, though this one ended with an exasperated sigh. "I'm not sure. It just came to me." He focused his eyes—blue or grey; in the dim light, it was impossible to tell—on him, decisively, adding, "Felix."

The man's eyes were too intent, the look he was giving him too scrutinizing. "Why are you looking at me like that?" There was one possibility, but he didn't think it very likely. It didn't _feel_ right. "Do you think that's my name?"

"What?" His eyes widened in surprise, abruptly wiping the intensity of the expression off his face. "No. Of course it isn't. Don't be ridiculous." He chuckled. "You don't look like a Felix at all."

It wasn't that he was disappointed that the man hadn't remembered his name. It wasn't his name. He was sure of that. It simply didn't _fit_ in the way he was hoping it would if he heard it spoken by someone. It was the laughter that grated on him, like the man was laughing at him for being foolish.

"And you do?" The question sounded more peevish to his ears than he intended.

"I'm not sure." The man didn't sound, or look, the least bit concerned about the tone he'd used. "I haven't a looking glass handy. But I suspect it suits me better than it suits you."

He still felt like he was being mocked, even though neither the man's voice nor the appraising stare that followed seemed cruel or sarcastic. Telling himself to get over it, that now wasn't the time for a fit of pique over nothing, he cleared his throat and offered evenly, "Maybe it's your name."

"Is it?" The possibility clearly hadn't occurred to him. "Felix..." He repeated, rolling the name around on his tongue as though he were tasting its syllables and testing it out. "I _do_ like the sound of it."

_Of course you do_. He rolled his eyes at the smug satisfaction of his companion's voice. It was to counteract that more than any true feeling of irritation that he muttered, "It sounds like the name of a troublemaker."

That got a dazzling smile in response. "Then I like it even more."

With exaggerated reluctance, he twitched his shoulders in an unconcerned shrug. "I suppose it's a start."

Felix barked out a laugh. "Oh, don't pout. I'm sure you'll remember your name soon enough."

He shot him a sideways glance. "Now who's the optimist?"

"Well, I can't let you monopolize _all_ of the cheerfulness, can I?"

Unable to hold onto his feigned irritation, he gave a low chuckle of his own. "Perish the thought." At least one mystery was solved now. There was an overwhelming number of others piled up right behind it, but nonetheless, it constituted a victory over their unfortunate circumstances. It had too, otherwise it would be entirely too easy to give in to despair.  

"Listen," he continued, sobering as he marshaled his flagging energy in order to tackle the next problem. "I've thought about it and—"

"Later." Felix waved a dismissive hand. 

"I beg your pardon?"

He rolled his shoulder in a casually negligent gesture. "Sleeping helped me remember my name. Perhaps it will do the same for you," he said nonchalantly, as if it didn't truly matter either way. As if by being careless, he could circumvent any disappointment either of them might feel should his prediction not come to pass. "In any case, it's your turn. I'll keep watch for a bit. We can finalize our brilliant strategy after you've awoken and introduced yourself properly."

No doubt it wasn't going to be that simple. He got the feeling nothing ever was. But with the sense of accomplishment still infusing the atmosphere around them, he didn't have the heart to destroy it. So in lieu of pointing out how great the possibility was that he wouldn't remember a blasted thing, he shot back with a tiny, albeit teasing, smirk, "I'm not sure that counts as a _proper_ introduction."

For his effort, he got a disdainful sniff. "It was better than yours. You didn't give me one at all."

"Felix," he began wearily, a thin note of exasperation creeping into his voice.

There was something irrepressible about the grin with which Felix graced him. "You know,” he mused thoughtfully. “I think I like it even better when you say it."

It sounded mildly flirtatious. The low lighting made it hard to be certain, but he thought Felix went so far as to wink at him. If there was a proper response to that, he hadn’t the first clue what it might be.

"Now," Felix cheekily continued, complete with yet another encouraging pat on the arm. "Off to sleep with you. I'm looking forward to making your acquaintance."


	2. Chapter 2

Unfortunately for Felix, he didn't get to make his acquaintance that day. Or the next one. Whatever stroke of luck had managed to jar Felix's memories hadn't deigned to pay him a similar visit. He woke from sleep just as clueless about his identity and his past as he'd been when this whole nightmare had begun. It was disappointing, of course, but not wholly unanticipated. He hadn’t been expecting miracles. And considering the dark tinge to his thoughts, he suspected that he had never expected them, even when he wasn't floundering to recall the entirety of his life. That one of them had remembered anything—and that was the only thing either had remembered; despite Felix's optimism when next he went to sleep, his name was the only tidbit of knowledge he'd been able to recover—had to be enough to content them both. 

It wasn't until the third day that he had a breakthrough, though truth to tell, it was due more to happenstance and dumb luck than any deliberate application of willpower or dogged determination to remember.   

Still in the wilderness, they were glacially approaching what they thought might be the end of it. Or at the very least, a bastion of civilization tucked away in amongst the towering trees. An hour earlier, they'd crested a rise and found what looked to be a road winding through the tall grass and gently rolling hills. Judging from the broken, and in some casing missing, paving stones, it wasn't a particularly well-maintained road, but there were signs that it was used with some regularity. Smudged indentations of boot-prints and hoof-prints could occasionally be glimpsed in the mud and dirt alongside the path, becoming considerably more obvious when the paving stones ended altogether and the road turned into simple hard-packed dirt. 

Where it led, neither of them knew. Felix had looked in one direction with a bemused frown, then glanced the other way without changing expression. Whether that meant he'd never been this way or just couldn't remember it was anyone's guess. Nothing about the area was familiar to him, either. But where there was a road, it was reasonable to assume that eventually there would be a settlement of some kind located along it. The question was, which way to go? 

"Any ideas?" he had asked Felix hopefully. 

"Not a one. I'd suggest heading in the direction that looked to be better maintained, but, well..." Falling silent, he had gestured meaningfully toward the road. 

As he'd studied it, glancing up and down its length as if doing so would eventually reveal its secrets, he absently rubbed his forefinger against the scar that marred the right side of his mouth. That had been his single discovery about himself yesterday, when he'd wiped water from his upper limp and felt the uneven flesh beneath his fingertip. He'd felt around at it for a moment, then Felix had confirmed what he'd had to assume: it was a straight line, a few inches long, likely left by a blade of some kind, and it had damaged the symmetry of his lip. In idle moments, he couldn't help wondering how he'd gotten it. 

"Maybe it doesn't matter," he'd said at last. "To go _to_ somewhere, it has to come _from_ somewhere else. At this point, one place is as good as another." 

"Unless it's the place we're running away from," Felix had been quick to chime in, sounding as though he thought himself being helpful. 

It hadn't been helpful at all. 

"I know." He'd sighed, drug his fingers up to run through his hair, and scratched at his scalp. It hadn't encouraged his brain to spark any brilliant ideas and it hadn't eased the headache that had settled in behind his eyes two nights ago and refused to disperse, but it had given him something to do with his hand, which was something he'd discovered he sorely needed in times of uncertainty, doubt, and discomfort. "But I don't have a damn clue which way to go." 

Another minute of silence had passed as they'd alternated between staring at each other and the road. Eventually, Felix had huffed in disgust and pointed toward the left. "Let's go that way." 

And so they had. 

Now, they were still walking along the road as it wound its leisurely way through one valley after another, across a few streams, and through a modest copse of trees. They saw no other travelers, no curls of smoke rising into the sky, no sign of a city, town, village, or even simple farmstead. Just meadows and trees, hills and valleys, mountain peaks and clusters of rocks as far as the eyes could see. But it was going somewhere, even if they couldn't figure out where. It had to be. Otherwise, what was the point of building the blasted thing in the first place? 

"This place is horrible," Felix grumbled irritably, just loud enough that he could hear him where he walked at his side. "Does it never end?" 

As far as complaints went, it was a valid one. Every time they reached high ground and looked hopefully toward the horizon, searching for something to break up the monotony of endless wilderness, they saw only more of it. It was frustrating and demoralizing and by now, it was reaching a low kind of pathetic hilarity that made him want to laugh. It felt like the world itself was playing a joke on them, though if it was, neither of them actually appreciated it. 

"At least it's scenic?" It _was_ beautiful country. That fact lent a note of patient sincerity to his voice that he'd stopped feeling two days ago. But the chance to good-naturedly needle his companion was too tempting to pass by. At present, it was just about the only entertainment he had. 

Felix scoffed and shot him a glare. "Perhaps you'd like to live here." 

He laughed. "How'd you guess? It's always been my lifelong dream to run off into the wild and live with the bears." 

Having spent so long with only Felix to speak with, he was beginning to recognize the signs of when he was fighting back a smile. It was the tension in his mouth and the slight deepening of the tiny crow’s feet that occasionally made an appearance around the corners of his eyes. "You're un _bear_ able." 

It was a terrible pun, which was precisely why he grinned as broadly as he did. "So was that joke. Are you getting tired? Do you need a break?" 

"Ha!" Felix smirked at him. "I'll take a break when you do, ser." 

"Maybe I want one right now." 

Contrary to the words he'd just spoken, Felix shook his head in disagreement. "No. If we stop now, I'm not going to want to get started again and I'd like to make _some_ progress before we give up in disgust." 

"So you are tired." 

"Of the scenery? Absolutely. Most of it, anyway." He glanced over from the corner of his eyes, not bothering to turn his head to look at him directly. "Physically, no. Not yet." 

He accepted that declaration with equanimity, not bothering to ask which scenery Felix hadn’t yet tired of seeing. And really, he knew he ought to keep his mouth shut on the question he wanted to ask, but he also knew that he wasn't going to do the sensible thing in the end. It needed to be asked, even if he already knew the answer. 

"Should we give hunting another try?" It came out sounding more hesitant than he wanted. "Before we do get tired." 

Their previous attempt had been a laughable disaster and neither man was eager to repeat it. That first day, after they'd rested long enough to regain some of their energy, they had set out at a more sedate pace than they'd been traveling previously. Some game had intermittently crossed their path, but they'd eschewed trying to bring it down and had opted to sate—a term both would agree had to be used extremely loosely—their hunger on haphazardly collected nuts and berries. The prevalence of edible sustenance was the wilderness' one saving grace; whenever they found a bush or tree bearing a decent supply, they'd taken some for the road. 

On the second day, noticeably hungrier than before and in need of something more filling than meager handfuls of tart fruit and slightly green nuts, they'd each tried their hand at slaying even one of the rabbits, goats, or deer they periodically stumbled upon and accidentally flushed from concealment during their trek. It had been a colossal failure. Despite the bizarrely constructed weapon he had strapped to his back—that in the light of day looked more like a ridiculously ornate spear than a serviceable staff—Felix was not adept at throwing it. He'd tried, numerous times, and each time the weapon went much too wide and fell short of its mark. Frustrated, Felix handed it over with a muttered comment about big louts with swords having to be useful for something, but as it happened, possibly having skill wielding a sword didn't translate into spear-throwing. 

It was possible that it was the fault of the weapon itself. It was weighted terribly, and the decoration at the top, a piece of dark metal worked through with tendrils of some strange blue stone that gleamed in the sunlight, prevented it from cutting cleanly through the air. After spending an aggravating hour with it, he'd admitted defeat with a worse headache throbbing behind his eyes than he'd begun with, and they'd settled in for the night with the same fare as the night before. 

Felix was giving him a dubious stare as he blinked himself out of the memory of their failure. There was an expectant quality to his expression, like he was waiting for an answer with depleting patience, that suggested that he'd asked something and hadn't received an answer. 

"What?" he hazarded uncertainly. 

"I said, maybe we're going about it the wrong way." As he spoke, Felix lifted a hand and pinched one of end of his moustache between thumb and forefinger, absently smoothing over the dark hairs as he continued thoughtfully. "Instead of playing the predators, perhaps we ought to try our hand at scavenging instead." 

His brow wrinkled in confusion. "I thought that's what we were doing already." 

"Hm? No, you misunderstand." He waved the comment away. "We can let something that knows how to hunt do the work and then we'll steal it." 

It had some merit. More merit that making another futile attempt at tossing that worthless spear-staff thing around. But there was one rather glaring problem with the idea. To steal prey, they'd have to find a predator that had already caught something. 

"I don't suppose you know where we can find a convenient bear? Or perhaps wolf?" 

"Aside from you, no. I'm fresh out of bears." Felix rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, I'm aware that it's not a perfect plan. But it is _a_ plan, and so far, I don't hear you offering an alternative." 

Although he got the distinct sense that he didn't enjoy it when it happened, he did know when he'd been beaten and wasn't about to persist fighting a losing battle. He was already waging one against the land around them. He didn't have the stamina for hopeless war on two fronts. 

"All right." He threw up his hands in defeat. "Let's do it your way. It can't be any worse than yesterday." Wandering around aimlessly was a skill they were getting remarkably adept at doing and it beat flailing about at smugly escaping wildlife like half-witted fools. 

And wander they did; first, along the road to nowhere and then later, into the hills proper, after he'd pointed out that it was unlikely they'd find anything conveniently laying out in the open. They made sure to travel parallel to the road, however, and always kept it distantly in sight so they wouldn't lose track of it completely. It might not be leading them anywhere but a slow death, but it was their sole source of civilization and neither of them wanted to relinquish the dismal security it offered. 

"There!" Felix hissed after a surprisingly long silence, pointing toward the sky at a dark shape flying low over the trees. "That hawk may have found something." 

Any other time, it would have been on the tip of his tongue to point out that even if the bird had spotted a hare, squirrel, or some other suitable source of meat, they couldn't fly and therefore wouldn't be able to catch up with it once it had claimed its prize. Now, it and every other thing he could have said got tangled up in one word and the vague, ephemeral impressions it evoked.

_Hawk_. 

 It circled in his mind much like the animal was doing ahead of them, a niggling sense of familiarity he couldn't place. When he chased after it, he was able to glean only the faintest sense of strength and courage, of determined conviction and fearless loyalty. All of which he knew were the qualities that made up a good man. The sort of man he thought he'd very much like to be. The sort of man perhaps he was, if only he was able to remember it. 

Could it really be that easy? Was this what Felix had felt when he'd woken from that first dream with a shaky, woefully incomplete grasp of the man he'd forgotten? It didn't seem possible, yet he couldn't deny the way it settled into him, a bone-deep certainty that here at last was something he _knew_. 

"I think that's it." 

He wasn't aware that he'd said it out loud until Felix turned to regard him in blank confusion. "What is?" 

"My name." 

Felix's eyes widened with surprise. Leaving off tracking the path of the hawk, he gave him his full attention. "You remember?" He sounded eager, excited. "What is it?" 

"Hawk." It didn't occur to him to feel self-conscious about it until he noticed that Felix was staring at him, the eager excitement on his face melting into befuddled blankness. Thinking that perhaps he'd misheard, or thought he was still talking about the bird, he repeated more helpfully, "It's Hawk. My name." 

Felix's stare turned doubtful and judgmental. "Like the bird." It wasn't a question. It sounded like a criticism, not quite sarcastic but well on its way to getting there. 

Like he was merely a spectator in someone else's body, he could feel the muscles in his shoulders tightening, slightly hunching in defensiveness. "I didn't criticize your name." Congratulations should have been in order: it could have been a peevish snap, and instead, it sounded more like a mild rejoinder. 

From the blasé way Felix reacted, it wouldn't have mattered either way. "It's just..." He shook his head like he was so horrified that he was at a loss for words. "Terribly dull," he finally settled on. "Might as well name you Dog. Or how about Tree?" Eyebrows rising in feigned enthusiasm, he pointed toward one of the dozens of nigh indistinguishable trees around them. "That's a nice one there. Maybe it can be your namesake." 

It shouldn't have bothered him. They'd been together just three days and already he knew that Felix was like this, prone to sarcasm and sharp jokes that weren't maliciously meant. But it burrowed under his skin anyway, despite telling himself not to let it get to him. He'd been looking forward to the moment when he could stop floundering over something as simple as knowing his own name. The ridicule he was getting for it, however harmless, was ruining it. 

"Never mind," he said brusquely, looking away from Felix and back to the sky, dodging further eye contact by searching for the bird that had started the whole stupid conversation. "Forget I said anything." 

"I don't think I'm likely to forget that," Felix responded, then snorted with what was clearly amusement. " _Hawk._ " 

Biting his tongue on what he would have liked to have said in return, he—Hawk; it was his name and whatever Felix thought of it, he was at least going to identify himself within the privacy of his own thoughts—made himself ignore him and start walking. If he was lucky, he could avoid having to talk to the man until his temper cooled under the guise of looking for food. 

*     *     *     *     * 

He wasn't lucky. He didn't know why he was surprised by that revelation. The meager collection of moments that comprised the breadth of his life as he knew it rather obviously pointed to just how _un_ lucky he was. Clinging to the hope that that wasn't always the case was turning out to be a fool's pursuit, and a fool was the last thing he wanted to be. 

Felix didn't shut up and let him alone. He kept yammering at him, offering his unsolicited and unwanted opinion on everything that crossed his mind or drew his attention. That he hadn't revisited Hawk's inadequacies was a small mercy Hawk was expecting to be withdrawn any second now. For his part, he said nothing, still irritated by the whole thing. When pressed for a response, he gave noncommittal grunts and quickly returned his attention to the countryside as if it was the most riveting thing he'd ever seen and required every ounce of his concentration to navigate. 

It was far from the truth. At this point, he thought he could probably trudge along with his eyes closed and not miss anything important. At least, he could have done so if the road hadn’t been such a broken mess. As it was, he had to keep his eyes on what he was doing lest he trip over a broken paving stone or wrench his ankle in an inconvenient hole. Whoever was tasked with ensuring the upkeep of the road was doing a terrible job of it and if they ever came upon someone to complain to about it, Hawk was damned well going to give the wastrel a piece of his mind. 

Beside him, Felix said something he didn't quite catch. More nonsense, he assumed, and didn't respond. His stomach was twisting uncomfortably, yet the prospect of more nuts and berries was utterly unappetizing. And his headache still hadn't abated. Worse, it had started to send tendrils of pain radiating down his neck and across his shoulders. It left him squinting against the sun's glare and looking more desperately for a place to settle in for the night. Even though there was plenty of daylight left and some deep-seated instinct balked at the idea of stopping so soon, he was quickly becoming too uncomfortable and miserable to care. 

So focused on pretending Felix didn't exist and trying to stave off a bout of pointless self-pity, Hawk didn't realize how silent his companion had become until he cleared his throat and spoke again. This time, against his will, Hawk found himself listening. 

"I said," Felix sounded mildly put out that he was repeating himself. "Does that look—Wait." He stopped abruptly and Hawk, left with the non-option of either doing the same or continuing on without him, grudgingly slowed to a halt. Felix was giving him a piercing stare, his grey eyes narrow and intent. "Are you ignoring me?" 

Unwilling to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he'd irked him, Hawk shrugged with careful indifference. "I've nothing to say." 

Felix's brow wrinkled, his expression unconvinced. "That doesn't seem like you." 

"How would you know?" That definitely sounded irritated. Hawk took a deep breath in through his nose and slowly exhaled, giving himself time to smooth out the rough edges of his tone. Once he was confident he wouldn't grumble, he added quietly, not entirely managing to pull off neutrality, "You don't know anything about me." 

"Are you angry with me?" Hawk glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Felix's expression was as bewildered as the question, as though the notion that he could be angry with him was astonishing and impossible to fathom. "Why?" 

Hawk didn't deign to answer. He turned his head a fraction of an inch, allowing the sideways glance to slide into something a little more direct, and stared at him flatly. Felix looked back at him and, as the silence lengthened and Hawk didn't break eye contact, gradually the surprised confusion melted into understanding. 

Pursing his lips, brows knitting together in consternation, Felix looked away and resumed walking. Hawk gave him a few paces, hoping the distance would discourage further dialogue, then followed. Blessed silence descended upon them, though there was a tension in it that prevented Hawk from thoroughly relaxing. However, even with the tense atmosphere, it was a welcome respite from the constant chatter. 

And predictably, it didn't last. 

"I didn't..." Felix started quietly, before cutting himself off with a wordless sound of irritation. 

Hawk didn't respond, content to stroll along as though blithely oblivious to the disquiet that existed between them. Being ignored, he was starting to notice, seemed to bother Felix more than being snapped at. Whether that was a part of his personality, independent of their situation, or a product of being lost in the wilderness with only the same person for company was at present difficult to determine. Given how much he liked to talk, regardless if his audience was actively listening or even pretending to try, Hawk expected it was the former. He wasn't such a practiced, fascinating conversational partner that he could entertain the notion that it had anything to do with him personally. What was important was that the silence worked to convey his disapproval and Felix, while stubborn, wasn't willing to allow it to drag on indefinitely. 

"It wasn't my intention to offend you," Felix offered, chewing absently at the inside edge of his lip. It wasn't an obvious apology, but it was a kind of one and likely the only one he was going to get. "I was just trying to have a bit of fun. Lighten the mood." 

When Hawk still didn't say anything, Felix kept talking, verging on babbling, to fill the silence. "It isn't as bad as all that. I could think of worse things to be named, surely." 

He was trying, however clumsily. Hawk couldn't prevent himself from relenting. "So can I." He kept his voice down, speaking the words like a truce. "Most of them not terribly polite." 

Seeming to sense a cease in hostilities, Felix allowed a tiny smile to twist at the corner of his mouth. "Let me guess. Nug Shit?" 

The coolness between thawed even further as Hawk snorted. "Horse Shit, actually, but that's close enough." 

Felix's smile quirked as a mischievous gleam flared to life in his eyes. Even before he opened his mouth, Hawk could already hear what he was going to say. An instant later, his prescience was proven true. "If you'd prefer..." 

Actual laughter left him in a bark of sound, and in that moment, Hawk knew that he'd forgiven him for the earlier slight. It fed a current of good humor into his laughter and he realized that he felt altogether better about everything. "No." He shook his head, still grinning. "No, I really wouldn't." 

"Glad to hear it." Felix sniffed with feigned delicacy, then favored him with a wink that skirted the boundaries of salaciousness. "Hawk rolls off the tongue _so_ much easier." 

There was innuendo in that statement, so blatant that he couldn't mistake it. A flush spread over his face, heating his cheeks and burning a path down the back of his neck. Clearing his throat, Hawk rubbed at his nape and scrambled for something clever to say in return. Nothing was forthcoming, his wits leaving him high, dry, and tongue-tied, with little to do but try to steer the conversation back on more navigable ground. 

"What were you going to say?" It was the best he could come up with, and judging from the smug smirk Felix shot his way, he was enjoying Hawk's inelegant fumbling. 

"Hm?" The sound of inquiry was a little too sing-song to be innocent. 

“Before.” Hawk waved a hand in an idle gesture, hoping to jog Felix’s mind. “I think you were asking me if I’d noticed something?” That was what it had sounded like, at any rate. 

Felix gave him a suspicious look, like he knew he was doing his level best to put him off, but after a moment it softened into a faint frown of consideration. It lasted only a few seconds before it cleared. “Oh. Yes. That.” 

Instead of elaborating, Felix paused mid-step and scanned the area around them. With nothing to do but wait for him to explain, Hawk followed the sweep of his gaze, taking a look for himself. Whatever it was, it wasn’t immediately visible to him. 

“Ah!” Felix suddenly exclaimed, jabbing a finger toward a spot off to their left. “Over there. Does that...” Squinting again, he cocked his head, as though viewing it from a different angle might help identify it. “It looks like a house to me.” 

Lifting his hand to shade his eyes, Hawk studied the spot Felix had indicated. From where he was standing, it looked like an overgrown mess more than anything else. There were tall trees clustered in a semi-circle around what appeared to be a haphazard pile of lumber, a meandering trail of rocks, and an overgrown hill. Closer inspection, coupled with looking at it through the lens of Felix’s opinion, revealed a vague sense of order to the lumber and a certain deliberate slope to the hill that didn’t quite seem natural. 

He didn’t want to say that it definitely was a house. But by the same token, he didn’t want to deny the possibility either. It might very well have been something capable of providing reliable shelter at one time and had simply fallen to disuse and time. Or perhaps it was wishful thinking playing tricks on them both. 

“Possibly,” Hawk finally answered uncertainly. His tone took on a doubtful edge. “Maybe one in sore need of repair.” 

Felix didn’t argue with his noticeable lack of enthusiasm, which was surprising in its own right. Hawk had come to expect a level of disagreeableness from the other man, purely for the sake of being contrary. When he didn’t get it, he was left with two options: wondering what was wrong or paying closer attention to what Felix said now that he was taking the matter seriously. By the semi-thoughtful expression settling across Felix’s face, Hawk reasoned that this situation fell into the latter category. 

“That may be so,” Felix agreed slowly, tearing his gaze away from the suspected house to regard Hawk. “But there might be supplies in there worth salvaging. At the very least, there could be enough roof still intact to give us a measure of shelter tonight.” 

He had a point. The dwelling, if that was what it truly was, was dilapidated, as much a victim to the ravages of time as the road. They weren’t going to walk through the crumbling doorway and find a feast waiting for them that night or provisions for the days to come. But it was conceivable that there were garments left behind by the previous owner. Nothing fancy or fashionable, no doubt, but Hawk cared more about being warm and dry than he did about impressing people—who, he would be quick to point out, they had yet to encounter—with what he was wearing. 

"All right," he nodded, turning his attention from the suspected house to Felix. "Let's give it a look." 

It took them about a quarter of an hour to reach the place, and once they'd gotten close enough to it, Hawk saw that it really was a house surrounded by a low, crumbling stone wall. Slats were missing in the walls of the house, giving them glimpses through into the interior as they approached, and most of the windows were free of shutters or glass, but the door in the front remained intact and from what they could see, it didn't appear that there were significant holes in the sod-covered roof. No sounds emanated from within to indicate that it was inhabited—in fact, the state of disrepair suggested that it had been abandoned quite a while ago—and after a brief glance at one another, they moved to enter it. 

"Well," Felix commented as Hawk nudged the door open and cautiously stepped inside, "I certainly wouldn't want to live here." 

He followed him in, right on his heels, but Hawk found the proximity more reassuring than irritating. If something dangerous lurked within, at least he had someone at his back to help defend against it. But as it happened, the precaution turned out to be unnecessary. 

The inside of the house was empty of both people and wildlife. Broken pottery littered the floor near the hearth and an overturned table. Two chairs rested nearby, one standing upright and one on its back, missing a leg. A threadbare, moth-eaten rug covered the floor directly in front of the hearth. A few shelves lined the walls, some broken, others with dusty bits of bric-a-brac decorating them. There were two chests in the far corner of the only other room in the house. Between the layout and the rickety pallet covered in tattered blankets, it was easy to assume that it served as the bedroom. 

"And I am _not_ sleeping on _that_." Stepping up beside Hawk, Felix pointed accusingly toward the bed, nose wrinkled in a moue of profound disgust.

Hawk slanted a look at him, biting the inside of his lip so that he wouldn't betray a needling smile. "I would've thought you tired of sleeping on the ground," he said mildly. 

"Yes, but there's weariness and there's desperation." Felix drew himself up to his full height and tipped his head back at just the right angle to pin both Hawk and the bed with a haughty glare. "And I've not yet reached the point where I'm willing to subject myself to that vermin-filled travesty." 

He couldn't help it. He laughed. Perhaps he should have kept quiet, but it was impossible not to find humor with Felix acting like a mortally offended lord. The glare turned scalding with betrayal. "Since you find this all so very humorous, _you_ , my uncivilized friend, are not welcome on my clean floor tonight. It's the midden heap for you." 

It was suddenly too much. Hawk's subdued laughter turned into a gale that left him bent over, clutching at his stomach with one hand and rubbing at his watering eyes with the other. Looking ever more offended the longer the hilarity gripped him, Felix huffed out a breath that sounded an octave shy of being a growl. 

"On second thought, you may sleep _outside_ tonight." 

"Oh, stop it." Still laughing, though he managed to get a firm enough grip on himself that the noise was reduced to low chuckles, Hawk elbowed him in the side. "It's not that bad. Honestly, Felix." 

Felix looked down his nose at him, plainly skeptical. 

Wiping at his eyes, Hawk straightened up and moved closer to the bed. His attempt at sober dignity was marred by a snort, but since Felix had yet to throw up his hands in exasperation and vacate the room, or toss Hawk out of it, he figured the worst of his ire had been spent. "Look," he continued soothingly. "I'll take it outside, shake out anything that might have made its home inside, fluff it up, and it will be..." Not good as new; he couldn't bring himself to lie and he wasn't that optimistic. "Well, it will be better than what we've had." 

The level of suspicion contained in Felix's glare was comical, though this time Hawk managed not to laugh at him. "Fine." Sniffing in disgust, Felix spun around and left the room, pausing long enough to call over his shoulder, "See to it. Though I make no promises." 

*     *     *     *     * 

There wasn't any food in the decrepit hovel, but Felix couldn't say that he was surprised. He'd been the one to find and suggest the place for the night's shelter, it was true, but he wasn't so blinded by gratitude for the dubiously fortuitous discovery that he was incapable for seeing the dump for what it was. The same couldn't be said for Hawk. After watching him putter about the place like he'd been born in it—in his more charitable moments, Felix had to admit that the blonde man was most likely simply grateful to have a roof over their heads—Felix had made a disparaging comment about his mysterious upbringing and retired to the hearth. Hawk hadn't deemed it safe to light a fire in it, too likely to draw attention or catch fire if the chimney wasn't clean of debris, but it was better than standing around in the way. 

Or worse, helping root through the odds and ends left inside after the hovel's owner had vanished. 

Hawk had found a set of musty blankets in one of the chests in the bedroom, along with an ugly poorly patched and still holey cloak Felix was certain was infested with fleas. When he'd pointed that out, Hawk had rolled his eyes and threatened to throw it on him. Felix had retaliated by brandishing his staff and cheerfully volunteering to stab him with it if he so much as twitched in his direction with the foul thing. 

It was actually a rather enjoyable, all things considered, though Felix would have never admitted it. No doubt the knowledge would go to Hawk's head and make him insufferably smug. Over the course of their never-ending trek through the inhospitable wilds, there'd been a smattering of glimpses into what the man was like when he was in the grip of self-satisfaction and Felix didn't want to encourage a full-blown episode. He would probably be intolerable. But he _thought_ it to himself, and smiled when Hawk's back was turned, and that was enough for him. 

Eventually, when curiosity had been indulged and hunger had been, if sated, at least postponed a few hours, they'd settled in to sleep. True to his word, Hawk had taken the mattress—Felix used that term in the loosest sense imaginable—outside and shaken it for a good ten minutes, then had beaten it with the flat of his sword for another comparable span of time, before bringing it back inside and declaring it free of pests. Felix had arched a brow and looked pointedly at him. From the quiet huff of laughter and exasperated rolling of his eyes, Hawk caught the joke. It was a form of revenge, then, the way he chivvied and badgered—and when all that had failed, had threatened to wrap him in the cape while he slept—at Felix until he'd agreed to abandon his plan to sleep on the floor and try the bed. 

After what felt like hours, and was in reality probably only a few minutes, of laying there listening to Hawk breathe, braced for the tickle of insects and rodents attempting to nest in his hair or his clothes despite all assurances that there weren't any present, Felix finally let himself relax. A little. 

Next to him, he felt the tension subside from Hawk's rigid form. Pretending to sleep, then. Or trying to sneak a turn of guard duty. 

"You realize that I know you're still awake, don't you?" Felix asked quietly, looking up into the darkness above him. There must have been a hole in roof and the overgrown patch of grass that covered it, because he could just make out the twinkle of a scattering of stars.

Either that, or there were glittering bugs crawling about above them. It made Felix's skin itch just thinking about it.

Hawk muttered something unintelligible under his breath. "Just go to sleep." 

If pressed, he couldn’t explain why Hawk’s penchant for putting himself through unnecessary discomfort grated on him the way that it did. He didn’t explore the thread of irritation that wound through him every night when, instead of laying down to sleep like a normal person might after a day of exertion, the other man insisted on remaining awake for an indeterminate amount of time. He wouldn’t answer when Felix asked about it in the morning, brushing it off with a muttered assertion that it hadn’t been very long. It sounded plausible, but Felix didn’t believe him. There was something too shifty about the look in his golden eyes to lend much confidence to his claim.

Most likely, it was misplaced guilt that pricked at him when it happened. Hawk never said anything to hint that he felt that Felix wasn’t living up to his end of some non-existent bargain, but the suspicion that he was failing persisted. And failure, Felix knew with bone-deep certainty, wasn’t something he enjoyed. Yet instead of correcting it, he avoided it, allowing the irritation to overpower any other feelings that might be lurking beneath the guilt.

If it had anything at all to do with the undercurrent of self-sacrifice he suspected lived inside of Hawk and severely doubted was within himself, Felix steadfastly refused to entertain the notion. There was nothing flattering about comparing himself to someone else and finding that comparison wanting. It was better on the ego just to get mad about it. 

“Do you intend to do the same?” He demanded, turning his head to look at the darkness that shrouded Hawk from view. “Or are you planning to stay awake all night again?” 

The whisper of fabric sliding together accompanied a gentle rocking motion as Hawk shifted uncomfortably. Felix knew he’d be caught out because the motion was pointless, a restless expenditure of energy rather than an honest attempt to get comfortable. “I don’t stay awake all night.” 

The protest was a weak one. 

“You need to work on your lying, Hawk.” Felix was aware that his voice was growing colder and harder as he spoke, but as the irritation spiked, he couldn’t make himself care. “You aren’t very good at it.” 

“I’m not—” A sharp click abruptly cut off what was no doubt going to be a transparent excuse. After a moment, Hawk sighed. “All right. I probably was, but not because—I just want us to be safe.” 

“We _are_ safe.” For an instant, he wished he could get a good look at him. “As safe as we’re going to be, anyhow.” Casting about for an argument that might appeal to Hawk’s ridiculous protectiveness, Felix latched onto the first thing that came to mind and added caustically, “You aren’t going to be much use in a fight if you collapse from exhaustion in the middle of it.”

The silence that followed was almost palpable. 

Felix wanted to pursue that avenue of thought, but some nameless instinct told him to hold his tongue. For once, he listened to it, despite how impatient for Hawk to say something he grew as the silence thickened. 

“That’s true,” Hawk murmured softly, rewarding Felix’s patience after what felt like an hour. “You’re right, of course.” 

“I feel as if I ought to get you to write that down,” Felix remarked archly. “Then you can’t deny you said it later.” 

Quite by accident, he’d discovered that Hawk’s sense of humor was prickly and unpredictable, leaving him uncertain as to what would be received with a dry chuckle and what would cause him to bristle. Therefore, he was surprised, and slightly delighted, when instead of snarling at him, Hawk made that soft, breathy exhalation that meant he was amused by something and failing at preventing himself from revealing it. 

“I won’t deny it.” He made the sound again, then his fingers, warm and a bit rough, groped around on the bed in the space between them for a bit before crossing it and brushing lightly against Felix’s wrist. “And I won’t stay on watch all night either.” 

Felix could practically hear the “ _don’t worry”_ Hawk didn’t add to the end of that declaration. Lest the man get the wrong idea, he sniffed disdainfully. “I should hope not. It’s so dark in here, there’s nothing to see anyway.” 

The light touch of Hawk’s fingertips became a firm pat before he withdrew the hand. “I thank you for guarding me against boredom.” 

“Clearly someone has to. You’re atrocious at it.” 

This time, it won a legitimate chuckle from him. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around.” 

The silence that gradually settled over them now was light and companionable, no longer smothering with the weight of accusations and well-intentioned lies. Felix could admit to himself that he liked this sort of quiet better than the last they’d experienced, and feeling much more at ease, he closed his eyes. He had every intention of letting himself drift off to sleep, tired from the day’s long walk and abysmal lack of sufficient food, but his body refused to comply when he started deliberately slowing his breathing. There was some thought scratching at the back of his mind, trying to get his attention. He tried to ignore it. The harder he tried, the more distracting it got, until finally he focused on it and tugged it loose. 

Immediately, it made a break for freedom and escaped through his mouth without his permission. “Do you think it’s strange that we remember horses and nugs but not ourselves?” 

Thankfully, the question came out soft enough that if Hawk had fallen asleep in the time he’d spent fighting with himself, he probably wouldn’t wake up. It was a happy fiction he believed right up until the body next to him moved again and proved him wrong. 

“I don’t know.” Hawk might not have been asleep, but there was a slow, raspy quality to his voice that told Felix he’d gotten pretty close before he’d been so unceremoniously roused. “I remember swords. I remember the Maker. We both know hawks and bears. I think it would be strange if we knew nothing.” Another jolt of movement jostled the bed, heralding Hawk’s twist over onto his side. From the subtle increase in the volume of his voice and the faint puff of air against his cheek, Felix realized that he’d turned to face him. “How could we survive then? Or communicate?” 

They were good questions. Unfortunately for both of them, Felix didn’t have an answer, good or bad. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that we can do both. It’s just, I don’t know. It seems awfully targeted.” 

Although Hawk didn’t immediately respond, there was an expectant edge to the quiet that told Felix he was thinking over what he’d said. “Do you think that’s possible?” 

Felix rolled his shoulders. “Why not? Whatever happened to us affected us the same way. The same things missing from my memory are missing from yours. That probably isn’t a coincidence.” 

“So you believe it was intentional?” 

Initially, he hadn’t known what to believe. As time went on and the similarities between his memory loss and Hawk’s intensified, and they continued to remember the same things while still struggling to remember others, the suspicion not only grew, but cemented itself. 

“I do, yes,” he answered, disliking the gravity that had snuck into his voice while he’d been distracted pondering his response. Then, since he had broached the topic anyway, he asked curiously, “Do you ever wonder if we were at fault?” 

“How do you mean?” 

Hand gestures were completely useless when they couldn’t be seen, but as he licked his lips, Felix found himself lifting his hand free of the blanket and waving it in the air between them. “What if we did this to each other? What if _we_ are what we’re running away from and because of what happened, we don’t remember?” 

He wasn’t wholly convinced that that was what had happened, but there was a rather persistent bit of paranoia lurking in his mind that insisted that it was a possibility. Worse than that, it whispered that it was probably true, since that was what seemed the least obvious cause for their predicament and the most painful for them upon discovery. 

“Maybe we hated each other,” he continued softly. “Maybe we were enemies of some kind and... I don’t know, had a battle and injured each other. Or used poison on one another.” 

In the ensuing silence, Felix absently started counting his heartbeat as he waited for Hawk to respond. _One. Two. Three._ He wasn’t nervous, per se, but he was eager to hear Hawk call him a fool for coming up with something so ridiculous, if only so that he could stop worrying at it like a bad tooth. _Four. Five. Six. Sev—_  

“Do you think poison can do that?” 

Of all the things Hawk could have said, that wasn’t anything Felix had been expecting. He blinked, trying to figure out how much of the conversation he’d clearly missed so that he could catch up and have the question make sense in context. Of course, he hadn’t missed some other, more relevant comment. That was it. 

“I’ve no idea.” He really didn’t, which made it even easier to brush the question aside. “Is that truly what concerns you most about that scenario?” 

Hawk didn’t respond verbally. He shrugged, so simply and exaggeratedly that Felix could figure out that was what the movement meant when he felt the tremors of it through the mattress. 

It was as comforting as it was infuriating. “You’re awfully blasé about this,” Felix pointed out testily. “Cuddling up to a potential enemy.” 

They weren’t actually cuddling. They were lying in the same bed, one on either side of the lumpy, misshapen mattress, with as much space between them as was possible without either of them falling off the edge. But the insinuation that came with a word like _cuddling_ seemed more incendiary, more likely to provoke a reaction. And a reaction was what he wanted, after such an indifferent reception to his unpleasant theory. 

Ultimately, it succeeded. It just wasn’t the kind of reaction Felix was anticipating. 

Hawk laughed. Actually _laughed._ At him! Like he wasn’t taking him seriously in the slightest. “You aren’t my enemy.” 

“How do you know?” Felix instantly demanded. 

Instead of answering him, Hawk responded with a question of his own, sounding entirely too calm and unconcerned about the whole affair. “Do you think I’m yours?” 

“I think I’ve probably gotten in over my head because of a handsome face more than once before,” Felix retorted tartly. “Why not again?” 

Once more, Hawk refused to rise to the bait he’d so artlessly slung out there. Or acknowledge it in any way. If he even noticed what Felix had said and insinuated. Sometimes, it was difficult to tell when sly innuendo, and occasionally the more overt sort, seemed to sail straight over his curly-haired head. “You aren’t my enemy, Felix.” He still sounded like he was laughing. 

“So you’ve said, but you’ve yet to answer my question about—” 

“I know.” 

“How?” Felix ground out through teeth clenched in an attempt displaying patience. Unfortunately, it was rapidly unraveling, making him doubt that he was very successful. 

For a moment, he thought the noncommittal hum Hawk gave was going to be his only response and then he was going to have to throttle the man for being so aggravating. But as he was contemplating reaching over and doing just that, Hawk started talk. “I don’t feel afraid when I look at you. Or angry or worried or whatever a man might feel looking upon someone who means him harm.” 

_Reasonable_ , Felix thought, _but still wrong._ How could Hawk be so sure of him when he wasn’t even sure of himself? Was it possible for a man to genuinely be this guileless? Felix certainly wasn’t. “Maybe that’s because you don’t remember enough to be any of those things.” 

When Hawk shook his head, the whole bed shook with it. “No.” 

Felix exhaled in an impatient, explosive burst. “For the fourth time—” 

“It’s just a feeling,” Hawk cut him off, sounding completely disinterested in his own feelings. 

“And what precisely is that?” he challenged. 

“Hm?” 

“This feeling of yours,” Felix elaborated with just the tiniest trace of scorn. “What do you feel when you look at me, if not anything potentially sensible?” 

There was a moment of profound silence. "Safe," Hawk said at last, quiet and thoughtful. "Comfortable. Content." 

That wasn't what he'd been expecting. Of all the things Hawk could have said, Felix had been anticipating nothing so complementary and certainly nothing so honest. They didn't truly know each other, yet for some unfathomable reason, Hawk seemed to feel no compunction about baring his heart to him as if they'd been the best of friends. And maybe they had been. As skeptical as he was about such a thing, Felix had no real reason to believe that it wasn't possible. They got along; their senses of humor weren't the same, but thus far they were largely compatible and if he couldn't say they were having _fun_ trying to make sense of their circumstances, neither could he say that he wasn't enjoying Hawk's company. 

It was still preposterous that the man felt that way about him. Just as it was preposterous that Felix was even the slightest bit moved by the admission. It was surely the dust in the air, stirred up when they'd been digging around in the detritus the hovel's previous tenant had left behind, that was constricting his chest and making it a tad difficult to breathe. He was surprised, naturally, and more doubtful than ever about his companion's intelligence, but that was it. 

Evidently he'd been silent for too long. Hawk cleared his throat, then grumbled under his breath, just loud enough for Felix to hear and understand him, "If you're about to tell me that you're afraid of me..." 

"No," Felix hastened to say into the pause Hawk had deliberately left for him to fill. "Not at all. I'm just..." He trailed off, not knowing what he was _just_ and having no means to explain it, not to himself and certainly not to Hawk. 

As if he could read his mind, Hawk sighed theatrically. "How do _you_ feel, then?" 

"Confused," he blurted out, then silently thanked the darkness that hid the embarrassed flush that suffused his face. 

Hawk just laughed; a low, velvety chuckle that Felix hadn't heard from him before and that consequently did absolutely nothing to diminish the heat that seemed to be burning through him. _Embarrassment_ , he told himself firmly. _I don't enjoy being laughed at._ It couldn't possibly be anything else. 

"Good to know this is such a one-sided relationship," Hawk was saying between chuckles. 

In lieu of a better, clever, response, Felix sighed as disgustedly as he could. It wouldn't do for Hawk to think him impressed, or in any way affected, by the last few minutes. To further empathize how untouched he was by the entire conversation, he muttered, cramming as much disgruntlement into his voice as possible, "You're loud and I'm trying to sleep. It's beyond rude." 

"Oh?" Hawk still sounded like he was laughing, but he did lower his voice. "Is that what you're doing? Sleeping? I thought we were having a conversation."

"Well," Felix clarified loftily, "You thought wrong." 

"Evidently." As agreeable as that one word was, it was too saturated with amusement to pretend that Hawk was suitably chastised. "I'll be quiet now. Good night, Felix." 

He was as good as his word, too. After that, Hawk said nothing, despite Felix remaining alert for more laughter. As the minutes passed with no more noise forthcoming and the tension of Hawk's watchfulness got fainter, he realized that the man was gradually dozing off. He should have been too, but a perverse streak of stubborn contrariness kept him alert until Hawk's breathing slowed and he was certain he'd fallen asleep. 

And even then, as time continued to slowly pass and Hawk neither moved nor made the slightest sound, Felix laid awake, unable to quiet his thoughts. He tried to follow suit, he shut his eyes and took long, slow breaths to lull his body to sleep, but the conversation continued to replay itself over and over in his mind. 

"Hawk?" He whispered quietly, after he could no longer stand it. "Are you awake?" 

There was no response, only the faint yet steady sound of him inhaling and softly exhaling. The bloody bastard hadn't even the courtesy to be obnoxious and snore. No, he had to lay there like the perfect guest, still, quiet, warm, and unobtrusive. Felix listened to him breathe for a few moments, then sighed in irritation. 

He couldn't give Hawk the satisfaction of an honest answer when he was awake, but now, knowing he was asleep and wouldn't be able to hear him, it was easier to coax the words out of their hiding place in his throat. Very quietly, so soft that it couldn’t qualify as a whisper, Felix murmured, "I _feel_ like you might very well be the answer to some question I can't remember asking. What I _know_ is that you're my friend."  

Which, strangely, somehow seemed inexplicably more important than the bizarre, nonsensical feeling Hawk tended to provoke in him.  

Oblivious to the confession that had just been breathed nearly into his ear, Hawk slept on without even a twitch. Expecting an ornery prickle of disappointment at receiving no reaction, Felix was pleased to discover that all he felt at not having been overheard was relief. He wasn’t ready to openly admit any of this to himself. He definitely wasn’t ready for Hawk to have an opinion on it. And he would. Hawk had an opinion on everything. Even if he refrained from voicing it, Felix could tell it existed by watching Hawk’s face. He wasn’t terribly adept at masking his expressions, however minute and fleeting they might happen to be. 

With the unanswered question no longer hovering between them and a continuing lack of signs of wakefulness from Hawk, Felix _finally_ felt his thoughts start to grow disjointed and heavy with weariness. He settled back into the bed and once again closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of those pinpricks of light, still undecided if they were stars or incredibly lazy insects. 

_See? You aren't the only one who can stand guard_ , was Felix's last smugly triumphant thought before sleep claimed him too. 

*     *     *     *     * 

Hawk woke slowly, becoming aware of his surroundings in gradual increments. It was nothing like his previous attempts at sleep, where he'd gotten only a few hours in tiny, disconnected periods and jolted awake at the least provocation, heart beating furiously and cold sweat soaking the hair at the back of his neck. This morning was certainly the most comfortable in memory, though admittedly that wasn't saying very much. It was still true, however, and Hawk was learning to appreciate moments of small comforts and minor triumphs. 

He was stretched out on his back on something relatively soft—the mattress of questionable cleanliness that Felix had taken such issue with, his sleepy mind eventually supplied—instead of contorted into an uncomfortable ball on hard, rocky ground. Even better, he was warm for the first time since he'd stopped running like a madman through the forest. It was, he soon discovered with a twitch of his fingers, due to a rough, homespun blanket and the solid bulk of another body pressed against his side and half-draped over him. 

As the pleasant dullness receded from his mind, he realized that there was hair tickling his nose. The sensation wasn't strong enough to make him sneeze, but it did prompt him to wiggle his nose in an attempt to dislodge it and finally open his eyes. 

There was light streaming in through the windows and missing pieces in the walls and a thin shaft of it pouring in from a hole in the roof almost directly onto the bed. How late it was, Hawk couldn't guess, but from the intensity of the sunlight, it seemed to be a cloud-free day. That buoyed his spirits considerably. The last few days had been partly cloudy and he'd been concerned about the increasing likelihood of rain. It was cold enough already; trudging along with such meager protection from the elements in the middle of a rainstorm would have been beyond miserable. 

When his next inhale made his nose itch, Hawk turned his attention away from contemplation of the level of light in the room and glanced down at the top of Felix's head where it rested tucked in between his shoulder and his cheek. A slightly harder exhale through his nose made the dark strands of hair flutter, before flattening down against his skull. Felix slept on, unaware. 

Hawk, however, was slowly becoming aware of details he'd missed when he'd initially woken. His arm was curved around Felix’s shoulders, his hand situated just shy of the middle of his shoulder blades. For his part, Felix's arm was slung over his waist and his hand was resting low on his stomach, his fingers splayed against flesh where Hawk’s shirt had rucked up while he'd slept. His leg was hooked over Hawk's thigh, the sole of his foot planted against the inside of his calf. And lying on his side flush up against him the way that he was, with only the thin fabric of their trousers as a barrier between them, meant that Hawk could feel his half-hard cock pressed against his hip. 

Whatever had taken his past from him obviously hadn’t also taken his sense of propriety and courtesy. He knew, as he laid there feeling the rise and fall of Felix’s chest against his side and beneath his palm and the faint puffs of air against his throat with every exhale, that he ought to be embarrassed to inadvertently witness such an intimate moment or perhaps uncomfortable that he was accidently violating Felix’s privacy. At the _very_ least, he should have been grossly ashamed of himself for the way his own cock began to harden once he realized what was going on. 

The problem was, he wasn’t ashamed; not of his body’s reaction and not of the decidedly inappropriate turn his thoughts were taking. He wasn’t so crass as to reach down and touch himself in the presence of someone else, no matter that it would ease his steadily building discomfort, but he did entertain a brief fantasy of ever so carefully shifting his hip and subtly coaxing Felix’s cock the rest of the way erect. And in the way of lazy, hazy just awoken thoughts, that brief fantasy led to another. 

_Felix’s eyes opening as he gently rocked into the pressure of Hawk’s hip, smiling that crooked, mischievous smile he’s seen so many times in the last three days. The tips of his fingers trailing lightly, teasingly down Hawk’s abdomen toward the ties of his trousers. His voice a low, throaty murmur just beneath Hawk’s ear as he haughtily points out that since Hawk has been rude enough to wake him with all of his moving about, he can apologize by taking care of a_ little _problem Felix has. Hawk’s slightly breathless chuckle as he agrees, nudging Felix over onto his back and pressing him against the bed before slowly sliding down his body, one hand unfastening his trousers before—_  

Pulse quickening, his breathing growing shorter and shallower, Hawk blinked back to reality to see Felix’s eyes open and watching him. They were a darker grey than usual, more pupil than iris, and for a moment, Hawk had the terrifying notion that Felix had somehow looked into his mind and seen every indecent thought about him he’d just had. 

_Now_ Hawk felt embarrassed, and to make matters worse, he could feel the heat rising to his face and neck. If Felix hadn’t divined the course of his thoughts through some sort of impossible magic, no doubt he could read them quite well in the flush that crept across his skin. There was no help for it. He couldn’t close his eyes and pretend to be asleep like a coward. Felix was already looking at him. He knew he was awake.    

Nervous with self-consciousness, Hawk cleared his throat and pointedly tried to ignore the ache between his legs that not even mortification seemed able to dispel. “Good morning.” 

The smile that had so recently taken center stage in his imagination made an appearance for real, slowly sliding across Felix’s mouth. “Mm, yes. It _is_ a good morning.” There was a low, almost sultry rasp to his voice—Hawk told himself it was residual roughness from sleeping more than anything else—that suggested that he was perfectly aware of Hawk’s current plight and found it vastly amusing. That suspicion only grew as he delicately scratched his fingernails over the bit of skin they rested atop, sending a jolt of arousal straight to Hawk’s cock. “We need to do this morning often.” 

_Sleep in a bed or...?_ Hawk tamped down on that thought before it could gain too much traction. Felix had to be teasing him. Or maybe he was simply making fun of him. And if that was all he said about Hawk’s ungentlemanly behavior, then he would consider himself fortunate. Instead of asking for clarification, he picked the first neutral response his somewhat addled brain could come up with. “I’ll do my best to arrange it.”  

“Please do,” Felix murmured in a tone just shy of a purr. 

Unsure of what to say and superstitiously hoping that if he didn’t move or draw any attention to the state he was in, Felix would somehow be oblivious to it, Hawk kept his mouth shut and refused to move. His hand was still laying against Felix’s back, but Felix was still where he’d woken up, hand on Hawk’s stomach, leg thrown over his, and groin pressed to his hip. Surely he knew that Hawk knew he was hard, but instead of being self-conscious about it, he didn’t seem to care. Or, perhaps more accurately, he seemed to be enjoying it. 

Too subtly to track it, Felix’s smile curled into a smirk. “Did you enjoy the novelty of night’s sleep, Hawk?” Now he was definitely teasing him. “Do you think it’s something you might want to experience again?” 

Happy to have something else to think, Hawk rolled his eyes. “Yes, Felix,” he said dutifully, rubbing reassuringly at Felix’s back before he realized he was doing it. “I’ll sleep again tonight. Happy?” 

Felix’s expression seemed caught somewhere between smug and pleased. “Ecstatic.” 

Something about the way he enunciated it sent a tiny shiver down Hawk’s spine, though he managed to keep himself under enough control that he didn’t physically react to it. Maker knew he’d already embarrassed himself plenty this morning. He didn’t want to make it worse than it already was. 

Perhaps Felix’s uncanny insight was keener than Hawk realized. Just as the silence was starting to settle over them, heavy with a tense kind of anticipation that made him want to squirm, Felix stretched. It was a long, slow stretch, a lazy and indulgent affair that rocked his hips into Hawk’s, shifted his thigh upward until it pressed against Hawk’s erection, and caused his hand to drift over his abdomen. 

It was the most handsy stretch Hawk thought that he’d ever experienced, memory loss notwithstanding. 

“Well,” Felix said a moment later, looking inordinately pleased with himself. “I suppose we’ve a pointless journey to get underway, yes?”    

“Unfortunately.” It came out a little gruffer than Hawk intended, but under the circumstances, it was the best he could do. Embarrassment had begun to cede the floor to arousal again, encouraged along by the increasingly strong impression that Felix was flirting with him. 

“Oh, don’t look so disappointed.” Removing his hand from Hawk’s stomach, he lifted it to pat consolingly at his cheek. Then he winked. “You know where I’ll be tonight.”

With that, he disentangled himself from Hawk and climbed out of bed. As he stood there fussing with his clothes and smoothing his hair into a semblance of order, conveniently turned so that it wasn’t possible to see if he’d been similarly affected by his little stunt, Hawk could only stare at him, waiting for his brain to catch up and his body to calm down. He didn’t have the benefit of Felix’s strategic positioning. If he stood up now, he would embarrass himself all over again. Because he _knew_ Felix would look. 

Unable to graciously let him have the last word, Hawk called out as he started to vacate the bedroom, “Oh, Felix? Don’t forget your cloak.”

Felix stared at him over his shoulder for a second, nonplussed, before bursting into laughter. He was still laughing when he left the room. And as Hawk got the courage to ease himself out of bed once he was reasonably sure Felix wouldn’t return, he could hear him still chuckling to himself.

Smiling, Hawk set to straightening out his own clothes. It looked like his earlier assessment of the day had been accurate after all. Despite the awkward mishap, it was shaping up to be a good day.


	3. Chapter 3

After quite a bit of complaining about the weather, the countryside, and the world in general, some of it rather loud and derisive, Felix took the cloak. He handled like it was a vicious viper that wanted nothing more than to bite him, touching it with just his fingertips and vigorously shaking it out until Hawk was afraid he'd shake the battered thing apart. Then, grumbling all the while and shooting Hawk filthy looks, as if its decrepit state was entirely his fault, he'd settled it around his shoulders with a shudder of disgust. When the cloak didn't spontaneously develop rats or insects, a coating of slimy filth, or whatever other ridiculous horror that Felix was apparently imagining, his hunched shoulders slowly relaxed. Hawk was tempted to inquire if he was warmer now but, in the interest of not being subjected to another tirade, he decided against poking at him. 

As it turned out, it was probably one of his better decisions that day. 

He'd been expecting some sort of awkwardness to crop up between them after the events of the morning, yet as it progressed into afternoon Felix neither mentioned it nor acted as if he was in any way bothered by it. If anything, he seemed moderately more friendly and talkative, which Hawk chalked up to getting a decent night's sleep and being better outfitted against the weather. It didn't make sense for his attitude to have any other cause. 

And perhaps, Hawk thought after silently mulling it over for the better part of two hours, he was overanalyzing the whole thing and overreacting, giving it more credence than it deserved. Viewed through the lens of their circumstance, it probably wasn't a big deal. They'd been in a confined space and although it'd been cold, they hadn't been able to light a fire. It was perfectly understandable and normal to gravitate toward something warm when cold, and even more so when one considered that they were asleep when they'd gotten tangled up together. And as for the physical reaction, well, that was arguably normal too. They were both men, subject to the same bodily responses. Waking up hard, with all the associated thoughts that came with his body being aroused, didn't have to mean anything unless he made it mean something, and by the same token, unless he started acting strange about it, there was no reason Felix needed to do so either. 

_Grow up_ , Hawk told himself firmly. _Felix isn't acting like an idiot over it. You shouldn't be either._ Resolving to put it out of his mind and stop worrying about it, he took a deep breath, lifted his gaze from where it had been trained on the ground in front of him, and was abruptly jerked to a halt as Felix reached over and grabbed his arm. 

"There's someone up ahead," said Felix softly, stepping closer so that he wouldn't have to raise his voice. "Look." 

Wool-gathering as he'd been, Hawk was ashamed to admit that he hadn't noticed, and had the trend continued, likely wouldn’t have done so until they’d gotten so close that there would have been no way to prevent the stranger from seeing them. That sort of inattention wouldn't do, it was too dangerous in an unknown environment, and his insecurities weren't remotely worth jeopardizing their safety. More than a little embarrassed by his behavior, Hawk vowed not to lose focus like that again. 

About half a mile ahead, give or take a few dozen feet, a man in neutral colors was sitting on a large rock beside the road. At such a distance, it wasn't possible to discern precisely what it was that he was doing. Eating, perhaps, or looking at a map. His head was down and his back was curved somewhat, as though he was studying something in his lap. There were no suspicious glints of sunlight off of metal or any other clues to indicate that the man was heavily armed. Though even if he was, it wasn't as if Hawk and Felix were defenseless. Two against one was still good odds, even if the two didn't remember the extent of their fighting skills. 

"What do you think?" Felix was murmuring, his fingers still curled around Hawk's forearm. 

"I don't know. He looks harmless." Frowning, Hawk squinted at the man, as though he could get a closer look if he just tried harder. "But looking harmless isn't the same as _being_ harmless." 

In the periphery of his vision, he saw Felix nodding in agreement. "I don't see anyone else, but that doesn't mean that there aren't others hiding nearby." 

There was definitely enough cover scattered between where they stood and the man sat to hide other people: large rock outcroppings, trees, bushes, even tall grass and the surrounding hillsides. It could very well be a traveler the same as them, taking a well-needed break before continuing on his way. It could also be someone associated with whoever was after them. Or some third party miscreant that had nothing to do with them but might wish them harm regardless. However, short of refusing to continue on in that direction, backtracking, or going out around the man, there was nothing they could do but risk it. 

It seemed foolish how, after all this time spent traipsing around trying to find some sign of civilization, now that they'd found another person all he could feel was wary trepidation instead of relief that they might finally be leaving the wilds behind. But this person—all people, really—was an unknown, and Hawk couldn't countenance having come all this way simply to waltz blithely into the hands of their pursuers. Perhaps he would end up looking paranoid for his caution. Even so, he would rather they be alive and well so Felix could critique his reservations than be imprisoned or, worse, dead. 

"If it is an ambush, we are not walking into it unaware." Hawk studied the man for a few moments more, then turned his attention to the terrain around him. There were so many places to hide, but those same points of concealment would also offer the two of them cover should they be attacked and require it. He glanced at Felix. "How confident are you with that staff?" 

Uncertainty flickered across Felix's face. So often, he answered questions with bluster and a disproportionate amount of self-assurance. It was heartening to see him take this seriously enough not to immediately respond with bullshit. At least now, Hawk thought he could be reasonably confident that whatever he said would be the truth. And _that_ would make it easier to plan their next move accordingly. 

“I know the pointy end goes into the fleshy bits,” Felix supplied after a thoughtful pause, tone flirting benignly with sarcasm. “And I figure I might be able to block a strike if I saw it coming.” He sounded doubtful about that, though. “But beyond that?” Sparing Hawk a quick, sideways glance, he shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve yet to be attacked, as you’re well aware. What about you?” 

“Roughly the same.” While it wasn’t the most flattering admission, at least it was honest and readily given. Hawk wasn’t about to put on airs for the sake of mollifying his ego. “I’ve an idea, but in the moment? There’s no telling how I’ll fare.” 

He meant to try, of course, and had no doubt that he would defend them both to his last breath, but how successful he’d be at it, Hawk had no way of knowing. It was easy to imagine swinging his sword around like a chevalier, blocking an opponent’s swings and batting them away as if they were nothing or effortlessly lunging forward to disarm, stab, or behead his adversaries. Nothing went wrong in his imagination, and if it did, he had a brilliant riposte envisioned that would win the day. In reality, Hawk knew, it unlikely to go so smoothly. Especially if he turned out to be a graceless, clumsy mess with a sword and whoever he had the misfortune of facing was a highly skilled combatant. 

For all he knew, he was a farmer who’d grabbed someone else’s sword in a well-intentioned, but ultimately futile attempt to protect himself. 

Regardless, they had this to deal with now. But afterward, if the morning took a turn for the worst _and_ if they survived it, or even if the man ahead truly was as harmless as he looked, Hawk was going to see to it that they didn’t have to struggle with this uncertainty again. They would learn to use their weapons, both of them, so that when next they were attacked, they would be able to defend themselves. Perhaps not stylishly, perhaps not with any brilliantly executed maneuvers that would make onlookers envious, but with enough skill to survive without significant injury. 

“After this,” he told Felix somberly. “We’re going to practice, you and I. I don’t want us to go into battle unprepared again.” 

Felix’s eyebrows rose in curiosity. “You think we’ll see a lot of battle?” he inquired, sounding less like he disbelieved in the possibility and more like he was simply interested in hearing Hawk’s reasoning. 

“I think we won’t be able to quit running until we make certain that whoever’s chasing us stops.” 

If the question had been a test, Hawk had a feeling that he’d passed. Just for a second, there was approval in Felix’s eyes. Or something so similar that he was willing to assume that was what it was. He tipped his head toward the lone man. “Do you think that’s one of them?” 

“I have no idea.” Hawk wished he had a better answer for him that that. “It could be. But it could be someone else entirely.” 

“Or it could be a wary traveler, same as us, just trying to get out of these Maker-forsaken hills.” Felix sighed, fingers flexing briefly against Hawk’s forearm before he released him and let the hand fall to rest at his side. 

The man ahead showed no sign of getting up and Hawk refused to be chased off the road by the possibility of trouble. "We'll keep going," he said decisively, with more conviction than he truly felt. "Just stay alert. If it's trouble, we'll deal with it." 

Felix looked at him with one eyebrow hitching upward. "You sound awfully confident of that." 

"We aren't dying today." _That_ he was confident about, skill with a blade notwithstanding. Whatever happened, he wasn't about to let this be the end for them. It was not with arrogance but calmly stated matter-of-factness that he solemnly vowed, "I'll protect you." 

The second eyebrow joined the first, but instead of looking offended, Hawk could see a trace of amusement in Felix's eyes. "Perhaps _I'll_ protect _you_ ," he corrected him mildly. 

Hawk nodded without hesitation. "Then you'll have my thanks." Perhaps another man might have had an egotistical rebuttal at the notion that he was incapable of saving himself from trouble. Hawk felt no such challenge to his self-worth. That Felix would endanger himself on his behalf was a gift, not an insult. "And I'll owe you one." 

An inquisitive hum was Felix's immediate response, though after a moment, he followed it up with a curious, "One what?" 

He'd meant a return of the lifesaving favor when he said it, but if Felix wanted something else, who was he to argue? Hawk gave an insouciant roll of his shoulders. "Whatever you want." 

A wide, and altogether wicked, smirk cut across his face. "Oh, really?" If the smirk wasn't insinuation enough, the way he drug out that last word was innuendo all on its own. 

The way Felix was looking at him, challenging and sly, Hawk thought he expected him to backpedal, or at the very least, put a qualifier on the open-ended offer. He didn't. Instead, he gave him a level look and said, without a trace of sarcasm, "Really." 

Just for a second, Felix's eyes widened in an unguarded indication of surprise. But as soon as it appeared, it was gone, wiped from his face as if it had never happened and replaced by such haughty satisfaction that Hawk would have never been fooled into believing that it wasn't affected. "That sounds like motivation if ever I heard it." 

A soft snort met that pronouncement. "Staying alive isn't motivation enough?" 

Felix looked down his nose at him. "I thought dying wasn't an option." 

"It's not," Hawk replied firmly, briefly showing his teeth in a tight, albeit determined, smile. His attention wandered away from Felix back to the unfamiliar man. Unconsciously, he curled his right hand around the hilt of his sword. "If there is fighting, stay behind me." 

"So sure I can't defend myself, are you?" The sniff of disdain didn't sound very fake. 

Hawk glanced at him askance. "More like worried I'll hit you by accident," he sheepishly confessed. 

Seeming to consider that offering and find it an acceptable explanation, Felix dipped his chin in a shallow nod. "Fair enough." Reaching back to the staff in order to limber up his shoulder, he too looked forward. "Are we ready?" 

Taking a long, deep breath, Hawk slowly exhaled. "As we'll ever be." He didn't loosen his grip on the sword until they were moving. "Come on." 

They resumed walking, Hawk careful to keep his gait no slower or faster than before. If the man ahead meant them no harm, the precaution wouldn't matter. If he had malicious intentions, Hawk wanted to refrain from appearing wary or fearful. By projecting the image of oblivious travelers when they were in actuality prepared for attack, they had an advantage. Not much of one, perhaps, but every little bit counted if they were about to be ambushed. 

"Do you think we'll reach the town soon?" Felix asked cheerfully, when they were so close to where the man was sitting that there was no way he could fail to overhear them. 

Slightly perplexed by the question, Hawk was prevented from asking what he was talking about when Felix glanced his way and he noticed the sharpness in his gaze. It was the look of a man with a plan, and despite Felix having not deigned to share it with him, Hawk was willing to roll with it. 

"Soon enough," he replied with a considerable dose of faux carefree confidence. It was the most neutral answer he could think of on such short notice. Whether they were three hours or three days from the nearest settlement, it wouldn't sound like he had no bloody idea where they were. 

"I should hope so," Felix continued, prattling on as if they were simply out for an afternoon stroll. "I'm overdue for a proper bath. This bathing in streams is entirely too uncivilized for my tastes." 

It was obvious that he was carrying on for their audience's sake, but even so, Hawk knew that complaint was a valid one. In fact, he shared it, though he wasn't willing to voice it yet and provide an opening for Felix to _really_ let loose on his displeasure with their current arrangement. 

Not wanting to give the stranger any reason to grow suspicious, Hawk never looked directly at him as they neared his resting place. He kept an eye on him through his peripheral vision, and when they were close enough, he saw him lift his head to look at them. Aware that he could be thinking the same thing about them that they were thinking about him, Hawk kept his hand well away from his sword and his posture loose and easy. Harmless but not easy prey was the aura he was trying to cultivate, and judging from the lack of alarm or hurried response from the stranger, it was working. 

The skin at the back of his neck was prickling with unease and his stomach was tying itself into anxious knots. At any moment, he expected a knife in the back or to hear the sound of shouting erupt from the sides of the road. Nothing happened. Birdsong still filtered through the air. The stranger didn't appear unduly disturbed. No branches in the distance cracked under a foot trying to tread lightly to avoid detection and there was no metallic jiggle of buckles or armor to betray a concealed bandit. 

_Maybe it was nothing after all_ , Hawk thought, the first tendrils of tentative relief beginning to snake through him.  

"Ah, your pardon, serahs!" The stranger called out to them as they came abreast of his rock. "If you've a moment?" 

Fully prepared to make good on his offer to shield Felix from harm, Hawk stepped forward to address the man before the conscious decision to do so had a chance to form in his mind. "Of course." He smiled politely, small but friendly, and as he came to a stop, he conveniently settled into a position that just so happened to put a shoulder between Felix and the unknown element. "What can we do for you?" 

As soon as the question left his mouth it occurred to him that it was possible the man was about to ask for directions. He hoped that wasn't the case. Not only would he not be able to provide them and help the guy out, it would make their earlier conversation look suspicious at worst and foolish at least. Not terribly important in the long run, but still a patch of awkwardness he hoped to avoid. 

Thankfully, that wasn’t what he requested. “I wondered if you might have a bit of coin to spare.” He gave them an embarrassed smile. “I’m on my way to Redcliffe, you see, and I was beset by bandits yesterday. They took everything I had.” 

It didn’t appear to be a lie. There were no packs propped up against his rock or straps trailing out from where he might have stashed them behind it. He _was_ wearing a cloak, but it didn’t bulge at strange locations or give any indication that there were full pouches buckled securely about the man’s waist beneath it. He looked an awful lot like what he appeared to be: a weather-worn man, possibly a farmer, old enough to have a smattering of grey lightening the temples of his brown hair, and outfitted in serviceable, but certainly not rich, clothes. 

Although he was unwilling to lower his guard, Hawk still found himself breathing a smidgen easier. The unpleasant imaginings he’d been plagued with on the walk to reach the man had been troubling, especially those that had forced him to consider what would happen—to himself and to Felix—if there was an altercation in which he sustained a serious injury. That they might yet emerge from this encounter unscathed seemed more and more likely. 

“I’m afraid we aren’t faring much better,” Hawk told him, with a sympathetic grimace. “We’ve naught but the clothes on our backs.” 

A shadow passed over the man’s face, as though he found this news troubling. “Did you run afoul of the bandits as well?”  

Lying, Hawk abruptly discovered, did not come naturally to him. Or if it did, it required careful planning first. When unexpectedly posed a question he didn’t want to answer truthfully, a lie did not spring spontaneously to his tongue. “Not as such,” he found himself saying, and it was only through a judicious application of willpower that he stayed the impulse to wince at his honesty. “No.” 

The man looked at him for a moment, seeming to digest this information in silence. Even after it became apparent that he wasn’t going to immediately question such a strange answer, Hawk still wanted to kick himself. It would have been so much simpler, and probably a lot less memorable, if he’d just taken the opportunity and agreed. The last thing they needed was to have this man get to wherever he was going, whatever this Redcliffe place was, and start talking about the strangers he’d met on the road. If their pursuers were also in the same town—or city, Hawk didn’t recognize the name and couldn’t estimate the size through such minimal context clues—they might hear those tales and take an interest. 

Hawk didn’t want to draw anyone’s interest. And as this encounter was rather pointedly teaching him, that meant he was going to need to learn how to lie convincingly and most importantly, off the cuff. Perhaps Felix was better at it. He certainly liked to talk a lot, anyway. After this, Hawk decided that he would have to inquire about advice for the future. 

Either he’d found whatever he was looking for on Hawk’s face or he realized that he wouldn’t get it and moved on, because the stranger’s gaze shifted, looking past him to Felix. As it happened, he liked that even less than he liked being subjected to it. But before he could tense up and do something—no doubt foolish—to attract the man’s attention and get it focused back on himself, Hawk found that he was once more under the scrutiny of those too-sharp dark eyes. 

“Are you also traveling to Redcliffe?” was the curious inquiry. 

This time, Hawk’s evasive maneuver was a little bit better. “If we pass that way we may stop in briefly to see our friends, but our destination lies beyond it.” 

In truth, if this so-called Redcliffe was the closest settlement, then they were headed there. But if they told the man that, he might ask to come along, and while safety in numbers was certainly a wise stance to take, Hawk didn’t want him to accompany them. It made him feel terrible for it, doubly so after hearing about his unfortunate incident with the bandits, but it paid to be cautious. Besides, they had enough problems brought on by their lack of memories. They didn’t need a stranger added to the mix who _might_ be an innocent bystander or who could very well turn out to be part of the reason they were like this. After all, it was the similarity of experience and the time spent with one another that had eased Hawk and Felix past suspicion of one another, Felix’s comments the previous night notwithstanding. They wouldn’t have such surety with a man they met by chance on the road. 

Still, despite not being a smooth liar, the man was nodding his acceptance of the answer. “It sounds like you’ve undertaken quite a trip.” There it was again, that same sharpness in his eyes that Hawk had noticed before, as he glanced between them. “And with so few provisions, too.” 

“That’s us,” Felix suddenly cut in, his voice so bright and irreverent that Hawk didn’t need to look at him to know he was smiling. “Always prepared.” 

As swift as Hawk’s namesake, the man’s gaze honed in on Felix. “You’ve an interesting accent, friend. Where is it you hail from?” He sounded casual, mildly curious at most, yet something about the question set Hawk’s teeth on edge. 

And it didn’t help that prior to that observation, he hadn’t even realized that Felix _had_ an accent. Compared to this man, his way of pronouncing vowels was a bit sharper, yes; perhaps more clearly and definitively enunciated. But had it not been remarked upon, Hawk wasn’t sure he would have noticed. Which led him to wonder—rather darkly, too—why this man, who’d only heard him speak a limited number of words, had noticed what Hawk hadn’t. 

Felix brushed it off with a shrug and a flap of his hand. “Oh, you know. A little bit of everywhere.” 

For a moment, the man said nothing and sucked thoughtfully at his teeth. “Is that so?” He hummed a low note that might have been made in amusement. “Must make for some interesting stories.” 

“That it does.” Hawk could hear the grin in Felix’s voice, but it was only when he patted him on the shoulder that he glanced his way and saw it on his mouth. “My friend here is quite entertained by me, I assure you.” 

Dark eyes flicked back in Hawk's direction and for a second, he felt as though he was being weighed, judged, and found wanting. It wasn't a feeling he appreciated, and he appreciated it even less when the man's attention strayed back to Felix. "I see." 

Something about his tone grated on Hawk's nerves. He could feel tension coiling through his body, tightening his muscles in preparation for... what, he didn't know. Attack? Defense? Something else entirely? It was impossible to tell. All he knew for sure was that it was taking everything he had not to let his hand curl into a fist. 

"Well," the man continued, plainly oblivious to Hawk's struggle to maintain composure. "I shouldn't keep you. It sounds like you've a long journey ahead of you." By the time he stopped speaking, he was looking once more at Hawk. 

Who had to force himself to loosen his lips, so that when he smiled politely at him, it was an actual smile and not a snarling grimace. "We wish you good fortune, serah." He inclined his head slightly in a tiny bow. "I hope you reach Redcliffe without delay." 

As Hawk—finally—turned away from him, he heard Felix murmur a quick farewell. Then he stepped up to his side and they were on their way, Hawk’s skin crawling with paranoia as he internally braced himself for attack. None came, but that didn't make it easier to breathe. That wouldn't happen, he surmised, until the man had disappeared behind them. 

"Oh!" The man called out before they were more than a dozen paces away. With his back between the man and his face, Hawk let his lips thin into a snarl. Felix glanced his way, but Hawk didn't meet his eyes and he didn't say anything about Hawk’s expression. "Just one more thing..." 

Pausing, Hawk looked over his shoulder. "Yes?" 

Now the stranger was smiling broadly, with too many teeth and a wholly unpleasant gleam in his eyes. He slid down from the rock, straight-backed and loose-limbed, his posture that of a man secure in his place in the world. No longer did he paint the picture of a poor, down on his luck farmer. 

_I knew it_ , Hawk thought, irritated at having his paranoia validated. _I knew it was too easy._ His hand crept to his sword as, surreptitiously, he scanned the area around and behind the man. It was still devoid of other people, but he suspected that an ambush was coming. From the way Felix had stiffened next to him, he was thinking the same thing. 

"Since you claim to have no gold to part with, I'll be relieving you of those weapons," the man was saying, waving a hand in an expansive gesture toward the two of them. 

That hadn't been the threat Hawk was expecting. "I beg your pardon?" left his mouth before he could stop himself. 

"The sword and the staff," the man barked, pointing at Hawk's hip. "Hand them over. _Now_." 

Felix made a choked, bitten off noise that sounded suspiciously like the start of laughter. "Are you mad?" he demanded in disbelief. "One unarmed man against two who don't happen to share a similar affliction?" 

The man—bandit, Hawk corrected himself—didn't respond verbally to Felix's provocation. Leaning sideways to reach behind the rock, he withdrew a double-edged longsword from where it had been concealed from view of passersby. The way he handled it was familiar, comfortable, and Hawk knew, with a bone-deep certainty he didn't feel toward much else, that he knew how to use it. Worse than that, he probably knew how to use it better than Hawk knew how to use his own. Still, it _was_ two to one. Surely they could prevail if they tried hard enough, regardless of how skilled he happened to be. 

It was a pleasant fantasy that was ripped apart almost as soon as it passed through Hawk's mind. Because the bandit was lifting the sword into the air and hollering, "Take out the mage first!" and armed men were springing into view from behind the concealment of rocks, trees, and bushes. 

Hawk swore under his breath and drew his own sword. "You had to ask," he growled at Felix, stepping forward to put himself between him and the advancing bandits and praying he wasn't about to get them both killed. 

"Well, _excuse me,_ " Felix huffed, but whatever offense he took at Hawk's comment didn't prevent him from taking a firm grip on his staff and holding it at the ready. 

After that, there wasn't time to continue pointing fingers. 

The man on the rock was the first bandit to reach them. He rushed Hawk, swinging his sword with cavalier ease, and before he realized it, Hawk was moving, side-stepping out of the man's path and bringing up his own sword to knock away the strike that had been aimed for his side. The impact jarred his arm, almost succeeded in shaking the hilt out of his hand, and he tightened his hold, grimacing in irritation at his mistake. The bandit was quick to recover and regained his footing in time to take another slash at him. Hawk reacted before he could over think it, blocking the blow and sharply pushing back. It jostled the bandit's arm wide and in those vital seconds before he could right his guard, Hawk jabbed forward, sliding the point of his sword between the man's ribs and jerking upward. 

With a choked scream, the bandit dropped his sword. His body followed it an instant later; his knees buckled and his weight dragged him down off of Hawk's sword to fall lifeless at his feet. Blood was spreading across the front of his jerkin, staining the leather a red so deep it was nearly brown. There were splatters of it on Hawk's hand, wet and thick as the droplets slid down his wrist. For a moment, he couldn't move, attention stalled out on the dead man laying mere inches away from him. 

"A little help, please!" Felix called out sharply from behind, breaking the odd numbness that had settled over him. 

Blinking, Hawk spun around to see him trying to fend off two other bandits and largely succeeding. The staff spun fast in his hands, wicked metal blade catching the sun, as he deflected the arc of a sword with the shaft between his hands, then drove the ornate end into the gut of the man closing in to his right. That man doubled over, retching, and Felix took advantage of his inattention to swing the staff around and slice upward with the blade, nearly splitting him in two.  

The one with the sword had moved in again, sensing an opportunity while Felix was preoccupied with his fellow, and took another swipe at him. Hawk was there before he could make contact, blocking the bandit's sword with his own and wishing he had a shield he could smash into his face while he was off-balance. In lieu of one, he used his elbow, cracking it into the bandit's jaw so hard it snapped his head to the side and made him stagger backward. Without missing a beat, Hawk slit his stomach open and watched dispassionately as he dropped to the ground. 

In time, the wound would kill him. Not very much time, either, judging from the severity of the injury and the hoarseness of his screams. But Hawk wasn't willing to risk letting blood loss do the job for him. Stepping up next to the man's shoulder, Hawk plunged the point of his sword down into his chest, easily puncturing the worn leather breastplate he wore. That it put an end to his suffering was an unconscious side-effect that he hadn't the time to consider. 

Something thudded dully into the back of his shoulder, jostling him forward and snapping his head up to see what had hit him. A rock, perhaps. Someone with a sling? He started to scan the area for his assailant, but a moment later, searing, white-hot pain poured down his arm, and in his surprised confusion, Hawk watched his sword fall from suddenly nerveless fingers. It was stunning, just how much his shoulder hurt, and when he gave it an experimental roll, the agony that washed over him nearly blacked out his vision. 

He shook his head, trying to get a grip on himself and force his attention back to the battle. Whatever had happened, even though it hurt like blazes at least he wasn't dead, and he wouldn't _be_ dead unless his attention wavered too far. _Or you lose too much blood_ , a pessimistic part of him pointed out. 

Because he _was_ bleeding. He could feel the warmth of it sliding down his back and soaking into his shirt, making it adhere to his side. _Later_ , he told himself, blinking to clear his eyes. _Worry about it later. Otherwise there won't be one._  

Even with that warning to get his head back in the battle, there almost wasn't a later anyway. 

Hawk came back to himself to see another bandit looming in front of him, sword raised, about to bring it down and behead him. There was no time to pick up his sword to block it, and there was barely enough time to consider diving to the ground to escape it. Before he could act on the thought and throw himself to the side, a wall of fire roared up in front of him, singeing his skin and engulfing his would-be killer. Hawk threw his left arm over his face and stumbled back, nearly tripping over the body of the bandit he'd killed, as the one on fire screamed and tried to flee. He didn't get far. The fire was too hot and too fierce; after a few steps, the man fell to the ground, thrashing weakly as his screams faded to nothing and soon grew still. 

Hawk barely paid the dying man any attention. He was too busy looking around, trying to figure out where the fire came from and if it was a threat to him. But there wasn't any clue as to its origins. Just the bodies of slain bandits, Felix looking both stunned and a little horrified, and another bandit drawing up behind him with a dagger poised to stab him in the back. Without a thought to what he could do to prevent Felix's death or whether any of his meager options were feasible, Hawk dropped into a crouch, snagged with his good hand the knife tucked into the belt of the man he'd killed, and flung it at the approaching bandit. It embedded itself in his throat, halting him before he could reach Felix, and he crumpled without a sound. Or so it seemed to Hawk. If he did make a noise, he couldn't hear it over the loud crackle of the fire at his back. 

Slowly, the adrenalin surging through him making him feel just a tad shaky--or perhaps it was the blood loss--Hawk stood up and surveyed the damage: four men laying dead in spreading pools of blood and a fifth little more than a charred corpse. There were no others that he could see, and as he looked around, the fire collapsed in on itself and went out. 

"Are you all right?" Hawk asked Felix, who was still standing in the same spot, pale and wide-eyed. He didn't _look_ like he'd been injured, but something was obviously wrong with him. "Were you injured?" 

"I did that," he said softly, voice shot through with something that sounded a lot like wonder. 

"What?" He stared at him, unable to parse the meaning behind the cryptic comment. 

"The fire. That was me." 

Involuntarily, Hawk glanced over his shoulder. There was a strip of blackened ground and ash where the line of fire had sprung up, but the flames had well and truly disappeared. He turned back to Felix, eyebrows rising, as he recalled what the bandits' leader had yelled at the beginning of the fight. 

"You're the mage." 

"What?" Felix finally focused on him and Hawk realized that he hadn't heard a thing he'd said. 

"You're a mage," he reiterated, taking a step closer. "Before he attacked us, that man told his people to take out the mage first. He meant you."  

A furrow crossed Felix's brow. "I wonder how he knew. _I_ didn't know." 

The obvious answer was there in Felix's hand. Hawk jerked his chin toward the staff that evidently wasn't meant to ever be a spear. "Maybe the staff gave it away." 

Felix glanced at it like he'd never seen it before. "Must be why it was such a terrible spear." A smile was starting to make its way across his mouth, but it froze as he lifted his gaze back to Hawk. "Er, Hawk? There's an arrow..." 

It was Hawk's turn to frown at him. "What?" 

With his free hand, Felix gestured toward him. "In your back. There's an arrow." 

He was still talking as he drove the blade of the staff into the ground and walked away from it, leaving it standing there by itself. Crossing over to Hawk, he grabbed him by the uninjured left arm and spun him around. Too befuddled to resist, Hawk went with it, growing shakier by the minute as blood and adrenalin left him. He felt Felix's hands pressing against him, one on his back and the other high on his shoulder. 

"I knew something hit me," he muttered, lifting his left hand to scrub at his face and thinking better of it when he saw the blood all over it. 

"There was an archer. He fired when you were killing that man. I thought..." Felix trailed off. From the corner of his eye, Hawk saw him half-turn away and look around. "I don't see him now." 

Hawk looked too, skin prickling in alarm, but when his eyes found the body of the bandit with the knife in his throat, he began to relax. There was a bow near to hand on the ground and a quiver of arrows at his hip. The missing archer. 

"I think I took care of that one," Hawk said, nudging him with his elbow. "Right there." 

Felix looked where he indicated, studied the body for a moment, then turned back to him with a huff. "Don't think this means you won." 

Hawk stared at him, nonplussed. "Sorry?" 

"I protected you too," Felix told him severely, as he grabbed his arm again and turned him back around so he could return to studying his back. "With the fire. In fact, I did it first. So before you get all smug about it, we protected each other." 

"I..." He wasn't going to argue about it. "Okay," he agreed weakly. "We both won." 

"Exactly," Felix said, sounding triumphant. "So good of you to be reasonable about it. I knew there was a reason I liked you." 

Hawk couldn't help wondering if there was also a reason why Felix was babbling like that. He hadn't heard him do anything like it before and it was oddly jarring, a little too light and breezy for having just killed a number of people. Though, after a bit of consideration, he had to acknowledge that perhaps that was the reason. They hadn't killed anyone before, not that Hawk could remember. Maybe this was how Felix coped with it. 

In an effort to take Felix's mind off of the carnage around them, he rolled his uninjured shoulder. "How bad is it?" 

"Hmm?" He sounded distracted. 

"The arrow. How bad is it?" 

"It's..." Felix trailed off into silence, then made a disgusted noise low in his throat. "I don't know. It's becoming increasingly obvious to me that I'm not a healer." His fingertips brushed against the bottom of his shoulder-blade and Hawk flinched at the fresh jolt of pain the gentle contact produced. "It needs to come out." 

"I gathered." Hawk tried for dryly humorous, but it came out sounding pained and weary instead. 

Tentatively, he felt around at the front of his shoulder, but there was nothing sticking out. That had to be a good thing, didn't it? That the arrow didn't go the whole way through? He wished he knew for sure. The only spare bit of knowledge he could gleam about himself from this debacle was that he hadn't dabbled in the non-magical healing arts either. 

"Should I—?" Felix began, uncertain. 

He could see it happening: Felix giving the shaft a tug, the arrowhead snapping off while it was still inside him, and then dying a slow, agonizing death as the wound got infected and sepsis set in. The vision was so clear that for a dizzying moment, Hawk couldn't be certain if Felix had actually just tried to yank the arrow free or if he'd imagined the whole thing. 

" _No_ ," he barked, the vehemence and volume of his voice so unexpected that it startled him. Slightly embarrassed, Hawk cleared his throat and ducked his head. "Don't—Don't just pull it out. It might be stuck in the bone." 

Maker help him if that was the case. 

"We can't just leave it in your shoulder," Felix snapped critically. 

No, they couldn't. But they couldn't make a hasty decision either. "I need to sit down," Hawk blurted out abruptly. "Right now." Otherwise he was going to fall down and that would do him no favors. 

"Right." 

Felix grabbed him by the left arm and unceremoniously hauled him over to the rock that the bandit had been camped out on before this whole mess had started. He wasn't exceptionally gentle about it, but he also wasn't babying him over the wound either, which Hawk greatly appreciated. Even when Felix shoved him into a sitting position on top of the thing and the resultant discomfort forced an involuntary grunt out of him, Hawk could only feel a peculiar sense of gratitude that he wasn't treating him like he was already laid out on his deathbed. 

“Well?” Felix demanded impatiently from behind him. “Now what?” 

_How do I know?_ Hawk almost snapped at him, the pain and frustration fraying his temper, but when he caught himself opening his mouth to do it, he deliberately forced his jaw closed and took a few deep, centering breaths instead. It wasn’t Felix’s fault. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Felix and his fire—Hawk hadn’t had the chance to adjust to that new tidbit about the man—he would be dead. 

“Get a grip on the shaft,” Hawk said impulsively. “Whatever you do, don’t pull it. Just make sure you’ve got a steady grip. When you are, twist it very carefully. If it resists, stop, don’t force it.” 

There was no fresh jolt of pain following his instructions, which meant that Felix hadn’t touched the arrow. From the silence behind him, he wasn’t even moving. Hawk was debating asking what the problem was when he finally spoke. “What’s the point of that, exactly?” 

“We have to make sure that it isn’t lodged in the bone, right?” Hawk suppressed a wince at his audible lack of confidence in his own idea. “If it is, it probably won’t turn. And if it’s not, it probably will.” It seemed like a logical assumption to him, anyway. 

“That’s it?” Felix’s disapproval could not be more apparent if he bluntly told Hawk his idea was idiotic. “Do you have any idea how much playing around with it like that is going to hurt?” 

Hawk snorted. “Yeah,” he replied wryly. “I think I’ve got an idea.” 

Whatever Felix grumbled under his breath, it was too low and indistinct for Hawk to make it out. No doubt it wasn’t anything complimentary. “All right,” came his quiet agreement after a moment. Then, with a noticeable increase in sarcasm, he added, “Do you need something to bite down on?” 

“Just get on with it.” 

Hawk fixed his eyes on the trees standing a few yards in front of him, not really seeing them, and curled his left hand into a fist. _Don’t let it be embedded in the bone_ , he prayed silently. _Please. I don’t want to die like this. I can’t. Felix needs me._

“On three?” Felix asked, taking hold of the shaft near the entry point of the wound. He was trying to be gentle about it, but even that infinitesimal movement sent a bolt of pain lancing through him, strong enough to make Hawk draw in a sharp breath. 

His response was an irritable growl. “ _Felix_.” 

It was all the prodding he needed. There was no count of three, just a cold, slippery twist that Hawk would have sworn he felt churning all the way down to his core. This time, it was a wave of agony that crashed over him, drowning out his ability to think about anything else. He tried to keep still, locking down on his body’s automatic reaction to flinch away, and breathe through it. Cold sweat broke out on his skin, though between the blood already coating him and the pain, he didn’t feel it. 

“It’s moving,” Felix told him, sounding as though he was coming from a considerable distance away. 

“You can stop now!” 

The pain didn’t immediately diminish, but it didn’t get worse, and the nausea that had started roiling in his gut settled. _It’s good news_ , he reminded himself as he fought to collect his scattered thoughts and tattered composure, half hunched over the elbow he’d planted on his thigh to brace for the experience. He didn’t have much of an idea where to go from here, but at least he had some small sliver of hope. 

Gingerly, he tipped his head to get a glimpse of Felix. “I guess you couldn’t use your magic on it?” 

Felix scoffed softly. “And what? Set it on fire? I’d probably set you on fire too.” He adopted a tone of feigned consideration. “I suppose that would solve the problem in the end, wouldn’t it?” 

Hawk sighed. “Point taken. I just thought, since it’s magic...” 

“Magic I don’t yet know anything about,” he corrected him severely. “Perhaps all I can do is conjure fire. Or perhaps I can do much more. I won’t know until I experiment with it and I don’t think treating a wound is the best way to go about it. Do you?” 

It had been a stupid suggestion. He knew that. But he’d also lost blood and he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to offer constructive ideas. This time when he found himself lifting his hand, he didn’t force it back down to his side, unconcerned about the blood he was getting into his hair as he scrubbed his fingertips over his scalp. 

“We’ll figure something out,” Felix continued after a pause, sounding less annoyed. “The man that attacked us said that there was a town ahead, didn’t he? Redcliffe, I believe he called it.” 

Darkly, Hawk muttered, “He never said it was a town.” 

Felix ignored his attempt to interject a little more realism into their situation. “We might be able to find help there.” 

“You’re going to trust the word of a bandit that just tried to kill us?” 

“We don’t have anything else to go on and I won’t stand around doing nothing while you bleed to death.” 

Hawk did wince at that. “Is it that bad?” 

Felix clicked his tongue. “No. But since you seem determined to give up, I thought something suitably dire would be more appropriate to the atmosphere of defeat.” 

“I’m not giving up!” 

He’d managed to get himself turned around far enough that he could look right at Felix while he glared at him. But Felix didn’t appear to be the least bit perturbed by his ire. If anything, the tiny smile twitching at the corner of his mouth seemed to indicate that he was amused. 

“That’s better,” he murmured cryptically. When Hawk opened his mouth to ask what he was talking about, Felix just shook his head and pointed to the bodies lying forgotten on the ground. “I’m going to go through their pockets, see if they’ve anything that might help us. Do you see anything you want?” 

Although he wasn’t operating at his best, it didn’t take Hawk very long to see what Felix was doing. And he couldn’t disagree with him, either. He needed something to take his mind off of wound, not only because of the pain, but also the reality of what might happen to him if they couldn’t get it treated properly. 

Forcing himself to sit up straighter, Hawk surveyed the dead. There were some decent looking weapons scattered about, and while wearing a dead man’s clothes wasn’t an appealing notion, most of the clothing and armor was significantly better for the climate than what he and Felix currently had on. If nothing else, he could ensure that should he succumb to the wound, Felix would at least be well-provisioned enough to have a decent chance at surviving on his own. 

*     *     *     *     * 

When they got back on the road, they were as heavily laden with supplies as they could be with Hawk’s carrying capacity at next to nothing. He’d stubbornly tried to take on his share of the burden, but neither his body nor Felix would let him get away with it. There was a belt with a few sheathed knives and two pouches of coin and what trinkets looked to be the most valuable strapped around his waist, cleaned by Felix of the worst of the blood splatters. There was also another knife tucked into his boot, but that was all he’d been permitted. 

It had fallen to Felix to buckle on the quiver of arrows, the bow, and another belt with pouches filled with more coin and a collection of odds and ends. A pack was slung across his chest, stuffed with the cleanest of the bandits’ blankets, a fresh shirt for Hawk once they’d dealt with his wound, and a largely unbloodied shirt made of thick wool. Felix was still wearing the cloak from the abandoned house and under it, he’d added a coat he’d pilfered from the archer. Hawk had been expecting at least one complaint, but he hadn’t uttered a word, even when he’d picked up his staff with one hand and reached for Hawk’s arm with the other. 

They set a steady, if slow, pace, and though Hawk had been quick to shake off that steadying hand, whenever he stumbled or grew dizzy, Felix’s fingers closed above his elbow like a vice. He had a suspicion that if he got too unsteady, Felix would sling his arm over his shoulders and try to carry his weight too, along with everything else. Not wanting to be a burden, Hawk was determined that that would not happen. 

And so far, he was able to see his conviction through. 

It was getting harder to complete the simple task of putting one foot in front of the other. His back had begun to itch where the blood had dried and plastered his shirt to his skin. His shoulder had long since passed the realm of painful and had set up camp in fiery agony territory. His head throbbed in time with his wound, occasionally greying out his vision and making his stomach twist violently. More than once, he thought he was going to vomit. Each time, he sucked in another breath, slowly let it out, and forced his feet to keep moving. 

Felix was an uncharacteristically silent presence at his side, infrequently offering quiet observations, never asking after his state of being. It was obvious that he cared; abstracted though his thoughts had become, it didn’t escaped Hawk’s notice that whenever he started to falter, Felix’s attention immediately focused on him. 

The sky was beginning to darken and still there was no sign of Redcliffe. What little optimism Hawk had been able to scrabble together had vanished, leaving him to wonder if it would be easier on them both if he told Felix to continue on without him. No doubt he would argue, he was turning out to be as stubborn as Hawk, but Hawk was sure he could convince him to go. He was upright only through sheer force of will. He might not like it, but Felix wouldn’t be able to deny that he wasn’t going to make it. 

Lost in a haze of pain, weariness, and a large dose of self-pitying frustration, Hawk didn’t realize Felix had stopped until he staggered forward another few paces, started to list to the side, and almost toppled over when there was no helping hand reaching to brace him up. Blearily, he shuffled around until he was facing Felix’s direction. 

“What?” At least, that was what he tried to ask. It came out sounding more like a wheezing grunt than anything else. 

Felix pointed to the right. “Do you see that?” 

Hawk dutifully turned his head in the indicated direction, but all he could make out was a blur of shadows, darker shadows, and dim light. “No.” 

That wasn’t any more intelligible than his last attempt at communication, but Felix seemed to understand it all the same. “It’s light.” He stepped up to Hawk’s side and gripped his arm, on the verge of shaking him and just barely resisting. “There’s a light over there.” 

He sounded excited. Hopeful. It hurt to have to disabuse him of it, but they’d discovered just how far optimism in the face other people went. “Felix, it’s not—” His throat closed, choking off the words, and he started to cough. 

Felix ignored his bid for caution. “No. Come on. We’re going.” 

He was already tugging Hawk after him, so insistently that Hawk had no choice but to stagger after him. It ended up being too much. After a meager handful of steps, Hawk’s knees gave out and he started to sag to the ground. Felix swore, ducked down with a clatter of miscellaneous paraphernalia, and looped Hawk’s good arm around his shoulders. Another curse got them back up on their feet, though Hawk leaned precariously against his side, trying to take his own weight and failing.

“Stop fighting me and start walking,” Felix snarled at him after a confused moment of fussing. 

The bow was slapping against the back of Hawk’s leg and the buckle from the pack was digging uncomfortably into his stomach. Pointing any of this out as a reason why Felix should just let him go was too much effort. Head drooping almost against Felix’s shoulder, Hawk gave up and focused what little remained of his concentration on keeping himself moving.

Time went soft and slow. Hawk had no idea how long they’d been walking. Soon, he forgot why they were walking or where they were even going. His world had grown fuzzy at the edges, narrowing until all it contained was the solid length of Felix’s body pressed against his side and the raging fire in his shoulder.

“Almost there,” Felix was muttering under his breath. “Almost—No. Don’t you dare.”

Hawk wasn’t sure who he was talking to. Someone else? Him? He couldn’t see anymore. 

“You bastard, don’t you dare— _Hawk_!” 

With a sigh of relief, Hawk sank into the darkness. Felix was angry with him, but he’d forgive him for it later once he understood. There was no pain in the dark.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to [sovietdistilled](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sovietdistilled) for coming up with the names of these elves. Also, I'd like to apologize in advance if my next update doesn't occur within the 1-2 week update schedule I'm trying to keep to with this story. I'm writing another DA fic for Nanowrimo and that might slow things down a tiny bit.

Fretting, Felix was coming to discover, did not suit him. Not emotionally, not ideologically, and certainly not physically. Not only had it succeeded in twisting his stomach up into knots and making his chest ache, it was also making him sneeze and break out in hives. He was actually _allergic_ to fretting and when Hawk woke up, he was going to get a piece of his mind. There might even be yelling. Felix was prepared to yell, if it meant that Hawk would never get his fool self injured again.

"Here, messere," Elora said, stepping in beside him and gently taking the mug from his hands. "Let me get you another cup of tea."

Tearing his eyes from the hearth and the flames he'd been watching for the better part of an hour, Felix looked up at her with a smile. And then promptly slapped a hand over his mouth to cover it as he sneezed. "Sorry," he mumbled, sniffing miserably before cautiously lowering his hand. "And thank you."

She gave him an understanding smile and patted him gently on the shoulder as she passed behind his chair. "It's my pleasure." 

Despite Hawk's delirious paranoia, the light Felix had spied in the distance had turned out to be a small house tucked in against the side of a hill. And when he'd reached the door, exhausted from half-carrying, half-dragging Hawk's unconscious body and more than a little terrified—not that he would ever admit it—that he'd been dying on him, the elven couple who'd answered his somewhat frantic knock had _not_ tried to kill him. They'd taken one look at him and his heavy burden and, with kind reassurances that they'd help in any way they could, had taken both of them into their home. Felix had been installed in front of the fire with blankets and a cup of steaming tea, while Hawk had been taken to the spare bedroom—"Our son moved out a year ago," Elora had explained with a faint smile—for Tarlthan to tend to him. Two hours later, he was still sitting in the chair Elora had ushered him into, wrapped in a blanket, stomach full from a bowl of stew she'd pressed into his hands and two mugs of tea, and finally warm down to even the tips of his toes. 

"Here you go." Elora appeared at his elbow, handed over the third mug of tea and a handkerchief, and took a seat in the worn old chair beside him. "How are you feeling?" 

He gave her a watery smile. His eyes were burning and he was terribly congested, but it seemed extraordinarily rude to whine about it someone who had already done so much for him. "Better than my friend, I think." He tried to say it lightly, to make a joke of it, but it came out sounding a lot more concerned that he wanted it to in front of a stranger. Even one as kind as this one was being.

"Don't worry, messere." He'd told her to call him Felix half a dozen times already and she still insisted on the formality. "My husband knows his business. He fought in the war, you see. He's dealt with wounds like this."

The way she said “war” was significant, as if its meaning ought to have spoken for itself. Felix had no idea what she was talking about, however, and could only look blankly at her.

A fleeting hint of alarm passed over her face when he didn't respond and she lifted a hand in what seemed to be a bid for him to hear her out before he reacted. "Not on the side of the templars," she said hastily, as if trying to reassure him, and gave him an apologetic smile. "Or the mages, really. He was just trying to protect our family and our land. Whenever the fighting got too close, he and some of the others in the area took up arms to protect us." 

That wasn't really any more illuminating than what she'd first said, but it did offer tidbits of information that Felix filed away to examine more closely later. A war, perhaps a recent one, had taken place here between mages and templars. That she was trying to ease his concerns—nonexistent though they were at the moment—about which side they'd been on suggested that she, like the bandit leader, recognized him for a mage. And honestly, that served to beg more questions than he had answers. Were mages still a danger? Were they still _in_ danger? Was _he_ in danger? And had he gotten Hawk aid only to threaten his life simply by being in it? 

He didn't know how to get those answers without revealing how much he was lacking. Being vulnerable didn't sit well with him. Not normally, and specifically not now, when Hawk was hurt and unable to defend himself if relations with these people took an unfortunate turn.

"But it's over now?" he asked cautiously, making sure to keep his curiosity sounding casual. It seemed a safe assumption, from the way she'd spoken of it and the absence of fighting or destruction he'd seen during the last few days. "The war?" 

From the frown she gave him, he hadn't been as successful as he'd hoped. Damage control was difficult when he didn't know if he was making it worse, but he couldn't leave it at that. Or worse, give her incentive to ask something he wouldn't be able to answer without raising suspicion. 

"My friend and I, we've been..." He stumbled into a brief pause as he searched for the least compromising way to explain it. "Out of the country. When the fighting started, it seemed safer to flee than make ourselves a target." 

He wasn't _that_ much younger than the woman. If her husband had been fighting in this war, it was believable that even if it had been many years ago, he and Hawk would have been old enough to recognize the danger and want to get away from it. 

She was giving him a look that was far too shrewd to his liking, but instead of calling him on lying, she surprised him by only nodding. "A wise decision, messere." 

Elora gave him another searching look while he fiddled with the handle on the mug and tried to take a sip of tea as nonchalantly as possible. A sneeze followed almost immediately on the heels of the mouthful of tea he swallowed, rather ruining his attempt at dignity. 

"To answer your question, yes," she said evenly as he wiped at his nose. "The war is over. A few fights still break out here and there, old fears and vows of retribution for past hurts that endure despite the call for peace, but most respect the part the mages played in sealing the hole in the sky." 

Felix was thankful she'd waited until _after_ he'd taken the drink to drop that on him. Otherwise he would have choked on it. Or more embarrassingly likely, spit it out all over her. _A hole in the sky?_ He fought to keep the shock off his face. No matter where he might claim he'd been for the duration of the war, there was no way he could pretend he hadn't noticed _that_. 

"So they're giving mages the credit for that?" he asked, approaching it from a different tack. The disbelief that led him to raise his eyebrows as he said the words wasn't feigned. 

Just like he knew the names of things and general information that wasn't the least bit personal to him, Felix was aware that mages weren't well liked. Or perhaps more accurately, he'd become aware that he possessed that knowledge once he'd learned that he was a mage and had cause to think about them. That seemed to be the way of it. He didn't know what he knew until he had reason to think along a particular line and suddenly there it was: a plethora of general knowledge utterly devoid of any accompanying memories of his life. 

Yet just because they weren't popular couldn't mean that mages were disliked _everywhere_. It couldn't be _that_ widespread. There were some places, surely, where mages weren't reviled, though he couldn't for the life of him think of the name of even one such place. But it simply wasn't possible that everybody everywhere disliked the same thing. People just weren't that agreeable. Not even in their hatred.   

Elora was studying him again in a way he couldn't quite name. It didn't make him afraid or wary, but it did make him wonder why and what she knew. "They have to. Too many people were there and witnessed it firsthand." 

"Well, that's..." He couldn't find the appropriate term and had to settle for a lame, "Something. I'm not sure what, exactly, but it's certainly something." 

The smile she gave him was kind. Almost encouraging. "A start. A good one. Things are changing, messere." 

It was starting to sound like she was trying to give him credit for some of that change and Felix wanted to protest. He couldn't, not without giving himself away, but he wasn't comfortable with it. Just because he was a mage didn't mean that he was one of these heroes or whatever they were. Summoning fire was one thing. Closing a hole _in the sky_ was quite another. And likely far outside his skill to boot.

At a loss for anything useful to say, Felix took another drink, smiling around the rim of the mug. He wondered what Hawk would do right now if their places were reversed. Smile that boyish, ridiculously charming smile at her, no doubt, and ask her a dozen questions about the war and where they were without sounding like he was trying to fill in the gaps in his memory. 

Lowering the mug to his lap, he tried to imagine a suitably Hawk-like question to ask. "Do you think that means we'll be able to avoid trouble on our way to Redcliffe, then?" That was safe enough, wasn't it? "From the people who aren't ready to let the war go, I mean." His mouth quirked in a wry smile. "Obviously there's the matter of bandits." 

After a moment's silence, she gave him another mysteriously significant look. "I believe you'll be fine. Redcliffe is only a day's journey from here and this part of the Hinterlands is more settled than what you've come through. Not many in this area would seek to cause you harm." 

That contradicted what the bandit leader had said, but Felix was willing to believe the word of a woman who gave him food and shelter and saved his friend's life over a man who'd tried to kill him for his staff. "Well, that's a relief." He smiled brightly, then spoiled the whole thing by sneezing so violently he nearly upended the tea all over himself. "Pardon me," he wheezed, rubbing at his watering eyes. "I wasn't like this earlier." 

There was laughter sparkling in her eyes, but Elora didn't actually laugh at him for it. "You've been traveling in nothing but a _tunic_ at the beginning of Drakonis." A hint of sternness crept into her voice. Felix thought it might be a holdover from when she'd been raising her son. "It's no wonder you caught a cold." 

He didn't have a good comeback for that, and in lieu of making up something lame, decided to give looking appropriately chastised a go. Elora didn't look convinced by it. Felix wasn't sure he could blame her. The perpetual sneezing was throwing him off. 

Eventually, she seemed to take pity on him. "Maybe it's time you turned in for the night." 

As tempting as it was to wrap himself in some blankets by the fire and sleep off whatever illness he'd contracted, he didn't want to fall asleep without speaking to Hawk first. "I thought I'd wait up a little longer. See if..." He let the sentence fade unfinished, knowing that he didn't need to spell it out. 

"You can go in if you'd like," Tarlthan spoke into the silence, stepping out of the second bedroom. Softly shutting the door behind him, he crossed over to join them in front of the fire. "There's no way to know when he'll wake up, but I've applied a fresh poultice to the wound and his fever's coming down." 

Felix was interrupted before he could thank him by another sneeze. Wincing in embarrassment, he wiped his nose, drained his tea, and stood up. "Thank you," he told them both. "For everything." 

The two elves exchanged a look that seemed a little bewildered, but Felix was at the mercy of some kind of illness and was likely feverish by now. It was possible that in his impending delirium, he was simply hallucinating. They'd saved Hawk's life, after all. Why on earth would they be surprised that he was thanking him for it? Because he was a mage? Well, whatever mages they'd encountered prior to tonight were apparently nothing like Felix, who wasn't too proud or arrogant or whatever those others were to express his gratitude. 

"You're welcome," Tarlthan said as he turned his gaze back on Felix, smiling in a way that, despite the look he'd shared with his wife, was genuine and friendly. "It's the least we could do." 

They must have him mistaken for one of the mages who'd handled the hole in the sky. It was the only explanation for Tarlthan's comment that made any sense. Felix wanted to correct him, the misplaced honor didn't sit well with him, but he kept silent on the impulse. What harm was it to let these people think that they were in the presence of a hero? It would give them something to tell their friends and perhaps it would afford them the opportunity to feel a little heroic themselves, having saved the life of someone they believed to be more than he was. A lie could be kind, Felix reasoned.

Not knowing how to respond, he gestured vaguely toward the door to Hawk's temporary room. "I'll just..." 

Elora gave him an understanding nod. "Don't worry if you sleep past breakfast. We'll make sure to leave enough for both of you." 

"Thank you, my lady." Not knowing what form of address was proper to use, he opted for what sounded the most respectful and bowed. "Have a good night."

It was a relief to slip into the privacy of the other room, away from the mistaken expectations of the elven couple. Whatever they were imagining of him, Felix knew he couldn't live up to it. The less time he spent with them, the less likely he was to show himself for the disappointment he knew he would inevitably be. He didn't need his memories to know that he wasn't whatever they thought he was. 

The room was sparsely furnished. The bed dominated the room, situated toward the center and on top of a rather large rug. It might have been plush once, but it was worn now, faded, and a little moth-eaten. A chest sat against the far wall, next to the window and a small table upon which burned a candle. A chair had been set up on the other side of the bed, likely for his benefit. Hawk was lying on his stomach in the middle of the bed with the covers pulled up to his shoulders. The white of the bandage covering his wound peeked out from the top of the covers. His boots were sitting beside the chest, the rest of his clothing conspicuously absent from view. 

As he sat down in the vacant chair, Felix heaved a quiet sigh. No doubt Elora was going to launder Hawk's bloodstained clothes. She hadn't said anything, but he had a sneaking suspicion that that was why he didn't see them anywhere and he knew that all protests to the contrary would more than likely get pointedly ignored. 

"Well, this is a fine mess you've gotten us into," Felix grumbled softly, uncomfortable with the heavy silence in the room and needing something to break it. "It's rude, you know. Nearly dying on a man and making a mess of strangers' homes. You ought to wake up and apologize." 

If Hawk could hear him, he gave no indication and slept on, his breathing as steady and even as it was when he'd walked in. Felix studied what he could see of his face in the candlelight, trying to estimate his health based on the color of his skin. All he knew was that it wasn't pale and sickly anymore. Beyond that, he was clueless. 

"You look terrible," Felix continued, absently reaching out to brush a few strands of Hawk's hair off of his forehead. Washed of the blood that had matted it earlier and dried, it was curlier than he'd yet seen it. "It's an affront to civilized people everywhere." 

Hawk still didn't respond to his voice. There wasn't even a twitch of his eyelids. Shifting in the chair, Felix made himself comfortable. It looked like it was going to be a long vigil. Because although he was tired and his eyes were burning from all the sneezing, he didn't think he was going to be able to go to sleep. Not yet. Perhaps not for some time. Not with Hawk lying there unconscious like he was. What if he woke up in the middle of the night and didn't know where he was? What if he was afraid? Or in pain? 

Besides, it wasn't like staying awake was a hardship. As nice as the elves were, someone probably ought to keep watch. Just in case. And Elora had given him a lot to think about anyway. While Hawk recuperated, he could at least help them both by sorting through the pieces she'd given him and start putting the puzzle together. Because there _was_ an answer to at least one of their questions hidden in there, Felix was sure of it. He could feel it stirring in his mind, itching to be acknowledged. He just needed to think. He was reasonably certain he was a clever man. He could figure this out. 

How long he let his mind wander down uncertain paths, Felix had no way of knowing. Time passed slowly with only the candle to mark its progress and sneezes to combat. He didn’t want to wake Hawk; it was better to scrunch his noise up and swallow until the itchiness faded than give in to it. Elora and Tarlthan did not come in and Felix was so lost in thought that he didn't hear them cease making noise in the other room and take themselves to bed. For all his contemplation, he found no true answers, only hints of things he wanted to discuss with Hawk, and eventually, he found his eyes drawn to the candle flame and his thoughts turned toward the fire he'd conjured what felt like years ago.

If he could make fire from nothing, didn’t that stand to reason that he could also influence the flames that were already in existence? 

It was an interesting question, and with nothing else to do and no one to distract him, he decided that now was the time to find out. He only hoped that he didn't repay the elves' kindness by burning their home down around them. 

What he discovered then was that magic was more than just wishing that a thing were so. He couldn't fan the flame merely by _wanting_ it to grow bigger. And staring at it, silently telling it to burn brighter did nothing but make him feel like a foolish child. There was something he was missing, perhaps even something obvious, but he couldn't grasp it. He'd done something when he'd called that wall of fire into existence. He could still remember the exhilaration he'd felt, that effervescent sense of _life_ that had shot through him like lightning. In the moment, he'd been so terrified that Hawk was going to die and so determined to prevent it that he'd... What? What had he done? 

Felix's brow furrowed in thought and he stared harder at the candle, not seeing it, as he tried to sort through his memories. He had so few that that particular moment shouldn't have been terribly difficult to find. And in truth, it wasn't. It was just muddled, chaotic and confused. 

_He's breathing hard, just starting to lower his staff from where he’s been holding it after killing the man who’d attacked him. His eyes track right, searching for Hawk to see how he's faring, to call out encouragement to him and tell him that see, they_ can _handle this. And there he is, standing over the body of the man he'd just killed, sword slipping from his hand and arrow still quivering in his back. Felix opens his mouth, tries to say his name in the same moment he tries to ask if he's all right and nothing at all comes out. Then there's an armed man charging in, sword raised, and Hawk's just standing there. He doesn't see him and he's not going to react in time._

_Hawk's going to die right in front of his eyes and Felix will not let that happen. He can't. Not after everything they've been through. He starts to shout again, not sure if it's Hawk's name or something wordless and frantic that's about to come out. And at the same time, he reaches inside himself the way he reached for his staff minutes ago, and he finds something bright and burning and he touches it, draws on it, refuses to accept what's happening in front of his eyes and demands that the world change._  

The little flame flared so brightly that for an instant, Felix couldn't see for the light. Jerking back in the chair, he blinked, and gold-white spots danced in his vision, leaving him momentarily blind. The candle flame guttered, dwindling almost to nothing, before struggling back to the way it had been before he'd meddled with it. Felix's heart was pounding, adrenaline was pouring through his body again, but along with the sharp burst of fear that he'd very nearly set something on fire was an equally strong sense of triumph. 

He'd done it! He'd figured it out! Not everything. Not even most things. But he knew how to reach the magic now. Perhaps not as well as he'd known before he'd lost his memories, but it wasn't lost to him anymore. When he tentatively reached inside himself again, he could feel it, like the slow moving current of a lazy river, deep down at the core of himself, running through everything he was. And now that he knew where to look, he didn't know how he'd missed it before. 

"Don't stop." 

Having sat so long in the quiet of the room, and now thoroughly absorbed in his exploration of his magical ability, Felix jumped when the whispery soft voice broke the silence. Glancing away from the candle, he looked down and saw Hawk's eyes open and looking at him. His hand, which he was startled to see was entangled in Hawk's hair, was still against the side of his head. Had he been combing through his hair the entire time and hadn't even realized it? 

"Hawk?" He kept his voice down, hesitant to disrupt the hushed atmosphere. Surprise and relief mingled in his tone, and he turned his attention to him fully, shoving the matter of his magic to the back of his mind. He would deal with it later. 

Hawk butted his head into his hand. When Felix didn't take such a subtle hint, he added coaxingly, "Feels good." 

Unable to deny him, and feeling a little less self-conscious about it when Hawk was practically demanding he keep at it, Felix flexed his fingers and resumed drawing them through his hair. "How are you?" 

Eyes fluttering shut at the sensation, Hawk mumbled, "Sore." An instant later, his eyes were open again, his gaze sharper than before, and he tried to push himself up. "Are you—?" 

Making a soft _tsk_ ing sound, Felix gently pushed him back down. "Fine. Everything's fine," he reassured him, bending his fingertips a little further so that his nails scratched lightly over his scalp. "We're safe."

Swallowing, Hawk stared at him, expression caught somewhere between wary suspicion and pleasure-tinged acceptance. "Where?"

He didn't like himself for it, but that didn't prevent Felix from marking that discovery and committing it to memory. Stubborn as Hawk was about everything, it seemed as though he was more biddable when he was being touched in a pleasing manner. Not that he would ever use it in a truly manipulative way, Felix tried to assuage his conscience, but it might be a useful tactic to employ if Hawk was being foolishly intractable about something that would be beneficial to one or both of them. 

"Do you remember that light I saw?" At Hawk's blank look, Felix corrected himself and elaborated. "No, I suppose you don't. Well, it was the light from this cabin. It belongs to an elven couple: Elora and Tarlthan. They took us in, patched you up, and gave me something to eat." It occurred to him then that Hawk had been without food or water for some time. "You probably aren't ready for food yet, but I could get you a drink if you'd like." 

Barely moving, Hawk shook his head. "No." He seemed to think about it a moment more, then ventured decisively, "S'okay." 

Felix accepted that without a word and went back to brushing—he wouldn't use the term _petting_ —Hawk's hair. There were so many things he wanted to say to him, though most of them were better left for when he was more coherent than he was now. Casting about for something to say that wouldn't require Hawk to participate in a conversation that might be taxing in his current condition, Felix was horrified to hear himself admitting softly, "I thought you were going to die." 

A weary smile tugged at the corner of Hawk's mouth. Felix was half-expecting him to be judgmental about his lack of faith in his durability, but he wasn't. "So did I." 

The blankets near his shoulder rippled, then lifted from the mattress far enough to allow Hawk's hand to creep out from beneath them. He didn't hesitate to reach out to touch Felix's arm, even though the movement caused the corner of his eye to tighten in a wince of discomfort. 

Frowning slightly, Felix used his free hand to take Hawk's wrist and gently set his arm back down on the mattress. Then he covered it with the blankets and smoothed them over top of it for good measure, hoping that Hawk would get the hint and stay still. 

"You aren't, however," he said lightly, attempting to conceal how worried he'd been about Hawk's chance of recovery. "Tarlthan removed the arrow and saw to the wound." 

"Thank you." 

Although the gesture was probably lost to the shadows of the room and Hawk's haziness, Felix still rolled his eyes. The show of annoyance—utterly feigned, though he didn't want Hawk to know it—was purely for the off-chance that some part of Hawk was paying attention. "Thank _him_ ," he corrected. 

Hawk's chin dipped once. "I will." 

And to Felix's surprise, though perhaps he should have realized it was coming, Hawk started to heave himself up. He didn't get very far and he wasn't very fast about it, his movements were still slow and it was clear that his shoulder wouldn't tolerate bearing weight yet, but that he made the attempt at all before Felix shut him down was beyond irritating. The man was injured! He should be resting, not trying to gallivant around the cabin! Honestly. 

"No, not now, you fool," Felix snapped, pushing him back down to the bed. "You need to rest." He sharpened his voice, gave it an overtone of command. "Go back to sleep."

"Yes, ser," Hawk murmured, and thankfully, subsided. 

Watching him, prepared for another mutiny against common sense, Felix decided that he was being more of a hindrance to Hawk's recovery than a help. As long as he was in here talking at him, he couldn't get any sleep, and talking to him evidently had the unwanted side effect of spurring him into action instead of relaxation. Now that he'd seen him, and saw him wake up, he could go back out the common room and settle in for what remained of the night. Maybe he wouldn't sleep, but Hawk would, and he could fuss with his magic some more. 

Pushing himself to his feet, Felix gave Hawk one last scratch, smoothed his hair back down, and retracted his hand. He straightened, fussed at his clothes for a second, then turned to go. He didn’t even take a step before Hawk's arm shot out from under the blankets and his hand fastened like a vice around Felix's wrist. 

Immediately, Felix turned back to him. "Do you need something?" 

"Stay," Hawk said quietly. 

"I..." It turned out to be impossible to say no to the man when he was staring at him that intently. "All right." 

Backing up toward the chair, Felix was about to reclaim his seat when Hawk tugged on his wrist. "No." 

Felix froze, perplexed. "What?" He frowned down at him, then shook his head. "I don't understand." 

As if Felix was being deliberately obtuse, Hawk scowled at him, somewhat ineffectively since he still looked half asleep, and gave his wrist a more forceful yank. "Stay." 

For another few seconds, they stared at each other, Hawk starting to look frustrated and annoyed and Felix still clueless as to what exactly he wanted. Then it dawned on him, so swiftly that he nearly jerked his wrist out of Hawk's grip in unconscious reaction. 

"You're injured, you daft man." His tone was a shade shy of berating and Felix didn't care. Hawk could have _died_. He should be resting now, soaking up the warmth and comfort they'd not had during their journey. Not willingly volunteering to give Felix half of his limited space. "Enjoy the luxury while you have it." 

Because once he was mended, Felix had every intention of curling up in his personal space at night and absorbing as much of his body heat as he could. 

Hawk was glaring at him, the mulish set of his jaw already a familiar sight. " _Stay_." 

It was a losing battle and Felix knew it. His intentions were noble, they truly were. But Hawk wasn't taking no for an answer and it _would_ be more comfortable to sleep in a bed instead of the chair that was waiting for him out in the common room. Felix could console himself with the fact that he'd _tried_ not to be selfish and had, in fact, held out until it became apparent that Hawk wasn't going to go back to sleep or relinquish his wrist until he gave him what he wanted. 

Determined not to give in with good grace, Felix heaved a heavy, melodramatic sigh. "Oh, for— _Fine_ ," he snapped, doing his damnedest to make sure it was sounding like Hawk was twisting his arm to get him to agree. "If it'll stop your complaining." 

Clearly unmoved and unappreciative of the quality of his performance, Hawk simply gave him a serene smile. And tellingly, he didn't release his grip. 

"You're going to have to let me go first," Felix huffed, rotating his wrist to emphasize the point. "If I have to crawl over you, it's only going to end up hurting you." 

For one rather long moment, Hawk subjected him to surprisingly intense scrutiny, as though trying to ferret out whether Felix was going to make a break for it once he was released. When Felix huffed again and scowled at him, Hawk finally relented and opened his fingers. Free at last, he made a show of dusting off his clothes and straightening them out and moved around to the other side of the bed. He could feel Hawk's gaze on him and heard the soft rustle when he turned his head to the other side to keep him in his line of sight. 

"A little trust wouldn't be remiss, you know," Felix told him, feigning hurt feelings a little too heavily and sounding as though he were pouting. He wasn't. He didn't _pout._  

Hawk didn't say anything, but Felix could practically _feel_ the smug smirk. Not wanting to encourage the man, he didn't look at him to confirm his suspicions. Instead, he toed off his boots, unclasped his belt, drew back the corner of the blankets, and slipped into the bed. Before he lay down and made himself comfortable, he leaned over to the rickety little table and blew out the candle. No sense in wasting it and he wasn't quite ready to exercise his magic with an audience. 

Even a bleary audience that probably wasn't really paying much attention to what he was doing now that he'd gotten his way. Honestly, the sacrifices Felix made for him. 

"If you aren't comfortable, tell me," he stressed as he relaxed onto the mattress, wriggling his shoulders until he found the _perfect_ spot. Felix clasped his hands atop his chest, glancing sideways as the bulky shadow next to him. "I don't want you rolling around and tearing that shoulder open again." 

"Yes, mother," Hawk grumbled, sounding a bit more like himself. 

Felix sniffed. "I pity that poor woman. I really do. I can just imagine the sort of nonsense she put up with you. Never following directions, always getting yourself into trouble, ignoring her perfectly good—" 

The warm weight of an arm settling over his stomach shut him up in mid-sentence. His throat worked, but no sound came out and eventually Felix shut his mouth. Next to him, Hawk had wormed his way closer and was pressed against his side, his arm curled around his mid-section and his face resting on Felix's shoulder. _He's still delirious_ , Felix told himself, looking for an explanation that made more sense than the obvious. _He's in pain and just wants comfort. He's cold and I'm warm._ But despite his best attempts at being reasonable, all of his justifications rang terribly hollow. 

This was an affectionate gesture. This was intimate in the same way that they'd woken up together yesterday morning. Perhaps their minds didn't remember who they were, but their bodies evidently did. And the longer they spent together, the more it was looking that they weren’t just two acquaintances who’d decided to avoid some kind of nightmarish fate together. 

"G'night," Hawk murmured drowsily into his shoulder, already sounding as though he was mostly asleep. 

Why he felt such a peculiar tightness in his throat, Felix couldn't begin to fathom. But there it was, making him feel like he was on the verge of coughing. Or like he needed to clear it. Perhaps a few times. 

"Good night, Hawk," he finally managed, the sound hoarser than it should have been. 

Hawk said nothing, already slipping into sleep and leaving Felix to lay there awake with his thoughts in disarray. Eventually, he did fall asleep, the rhythmic sound of Hawk's breathing, his warmth, and the exhaustion—mental and physical—that the day had wrought working together to quiet his mind and give Felix the push he needed to drop off.

Between the revelations of his magic and the drama, such as it was, with Hawk, Felix never realized that he'd stopped sneezing. Moreover, it never occurred to him to wonder _why._  

*     *     *     *     * 

It was the shaking that woke him. He didn't come awake quickly, it wasn't that violent and there were no accompanying sounds of distress to indicate that there was trouble he needed to deal with, but it pricked at his awareness enough that he pulled himself to consciousness faster than he otherwise would have done on such a warm, comfortable morning. Before he'd quite gotten his eyes open, he registered that it was coming from Hawk and that it was his proximity that was enabling him to feel every shudder that wracked his body. _That_ was all the motivation he needed to open his eyes and look toward the man at his side. 

Hawk was curled up against him, in as tight a ball as he could get without flipping over onto his side, head tucked in against Felix's shoulder and arm so tight around Felix's midriff that it was almost uncomfortable. His face was paler than usual and when Felix laid a hand against his forehead, he discovered that his skin was clammy with sweat. 

"Hawk," he called, voice sharpening with alarm. "Hawk, wake up."

He didn't immediately respond, just shivered harder and tightened his arm. Hissing in frustration, Felix took hold of his arm and gave it a shake. " _Hawk_!" 

That worked. Hawk's eyes opened, his pupils so dilated that there was barely any of the gold iris showing at the edges. Ordinarily, and especially after yesterday, he would interpret that look as arousal. With the clammy skin and the shaking, Felix knew he was in pain. 

"What's the matter?" His tone was clipped, no-nonsense and likely too demanding for someone who'd just been rudely woken up. "Are you sick?" 

Felix itched to wriggle out from underneath his arm and look at the wound on his shoulder, but that would require shoving Hawk away and he didn't have the heart to do it. Not quite yet. 

"No." Hawk's voice was a tight rasp, and after a quiet groan, he buried his face in Felix's shoulder. "Hurts." 

"What hurts?" Huffing, Felix leaned to the side and prodded at his good shoulder, trying to get him to raise his head again. "Your shoulder?" 

For a few agonizingly slow seconds, a weak headshake was the only answer Hawk gave him. Then, just as Felix was opening his mouth to impatiently demand more elaboration, a quiet, half-muffled "Everything" filtered upward to his ears. 

His eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, everything? Be more specific." Sure, the word was self-explanatory, but it was far from helpful. If he was going to fix whatever was wrong, he needed a better starting place than _everywhere_. 

"Everything," Hawk ground out through clenched teeth, slowly lifting his head to pin Felix with a glazed stare. "Everything. Feels like there’s a fire inside. Like my bones are burning. " 

That sounded somewhat like a fever, but his skin had been cool when he'd last touched his forehead. Frowning, Felix touched the back of his hand to it again. Once more, all he could feel was cool, damp skin. He pressed his lips together, confounded. 

"You don't have a fever." 

Another shudder wracked him, so violent Felix could feel it along the entire length of his body. Fever or no, he couldn't deny what was right in front of him. Something was very, _very_ wrong. 

"All right," he said decisively, patting at the arm wrapped around him. "Let me up. I need to check your bandage." 

It made it easier for him that Hawk didn't fight him on it, but at the same time, he couldn't help feeling that the man's uncontested acquiescence was yet another symptom that things had become far direr than anyone anticipated. They hadn't known each other—admittedly, not that they could remember—for even a week and Hawk had already proven himself extraordinarily bull-headed when his mind was made up about something. But he lifted his arm away from Felix's waist and made not one sound of protest as he slid out from underneath him and sat up. 

"Turn your head the other way," Felix murmured, running his fingertips through Hawk's curly hair, absently working a tangle out of a hank of it. 

Met with more unquestioning obedience, he had to bite his tongue on a contradictorily needling comment and carefully started to peel back the bandage. Hawk didn't flinch at the contact, didn't make the slightest sound of discomfort, and once the wound was revealed, Felix could see why. The flesh around the puncture wasn't inflamed, there was no pus collecting under the skin, and it wasn't seeping any fluid. It looked like a well-cleaned wound that was already starting the healing process, likely due to the healing salve that had been slathered over it last night. 

"Well?" Hawk croaked. "How bad is it?" 

"It isn't," Felix responded, chewing on his lower lip as he stared at it, waiting to see _something_ that could explain Hawk's pain. "It looks like it's healing well." 

He realized that a heavy, uncomfortable silence had settled over them when he became aware of how loud each breath Hawk took sounded. It was labored, like he was stealing himself for every inhale and fighting against the pain it caused him, and Felix couldn't explain _why_. It didn't make any sense. 

After the silence began to feel interminable, Hawk broke it with one softly spoken word. "Poison." 

Just hearing it sent a chill down Felix's spine. "Don't be ridiculous." 

Hawk turned his head to look at him, wincing as another spasm of pain lanced through his body. "Denial isn't an antidote." 

Felix scowled and snapped back. "You haven't been poisoned." Quickly, he smoothed the bandage back into place and stood up. "Stay there and don't move. I'm going to get another opinion." 

Without waiting for a response, he spun around and walked out of the room. He wasn't poisoned. He couldn't be. If he was poisoned, there was no way to tell what it was and it had had too long to work through his system. If it was an obscure poison, the elves doubtlessly didn't have an antidote. If it was poison— _No_ , Felix cut the thought off before it could finish. _It's not poison. He isn't poisoned._  

Elora was standing at the table chopping vegetables when he burst into the common room. Knife stalling mid-cut through a tuber, she looked up, smile of greeting swiftly fading as she got a good look at his face. "What is it?" 

"Hawk." Felix made sure to keep his voice down so that it wouldn't travel back into the bedroom he'd just left. "I think the arrow was poisoned." 

She set the knife down with a sharp click. "Tarlthan's out in the barn. Go get him." 

Nodding, Felix darted to the door. Behind him, he could hear her footsteps receding toward the room she shared with her husband. Outside, he scanned the area, searching for the aforementioned barn. In the bright light of day, it was easy to spot it not far from the house. He didn't run, but he hurried his pace as fast as he could without breaking into a sprint. It was foolish, he knew, but he felt like every second he was away from his friend only increased the likelihood that he was going to return to find a corpse in the bed. 

Upon reaching the barn, Felix stuck his head in and yelled, "Hawk needs help!" Unwilling to wait for the elf to appear in view, he was halfway back to the house before he heard the rapid thud of booted footsteps hurrying after him. 

They entered the bedroom together, Felix all but elbowing Tarlthan out of the way so that he could be the first inside, and saw Elora sitting on the edge of the bed beside Hawk, inspecting the wound herself. A small bag of tonics and potions and vials of salve sat in the middle of the bedside table. Hawk's eyes were open, and when Felix stepped into his line of sight, he looked right at him. 

_Not dead, then_ , he thought in relief, trying and failing to keep it off his face. 

Hawk evidently wasn't so far gone in the throes of agony that he couldn't figure out what it meant. His brow furrowed. "Thought it wasn't poison."

It sounded like a weak attempt at a joke. Hawk didn't look terrified by the prospect or like he was bracing himself for confirmation of the diagnosis. Felix scowled at him. "It isn't. Stop being so dramatic." 

From the corner of his eye, he caught Elora and Tarlthan exchanging a look. He couldn't decipher what it meant, but if they were drawing lots to see who was going to break the bad news, he was going to... to... He wasn't sure. But by the Maker, he was going to do _something_ and then everyone was going to be sorry. 

"Look this over," Elora was telling her husband as she stood and made room for him in her place. 

Felix angled closer to her, hoping to nudge some information out of her. If she didn't want Hawk to hear, fine. He would tell him himself, but _he_ needed to know what was going on and he needed to know now. But she didn't lean in to whisper anything into his ear and she didn't say anything to him. She merely stood there calmly and watched Tarlthan inspect the wound. 

"If it's poison," he said finally, just when Felix thought he was going to explode from the tension. "It isn't like any I've ever seen." 

"That's because it isn't," Felix snapped before he could stop himself. 

Tarlthan didn't appear offended by his outburst. He simply focused on him with a raised eyebrow. "Do you know what it is?" 

"Obviously not or I wouldn't be standing here doing nothing." 

"You're a mage," Elora pointed out gently. 

"Yes," he agreed, crossing his arms over his chest. "And? I don't think lighting him on fire is going to help." 

A quiet voice murmured from the bed, "Please don't." 

Felix almost laughed. In fact, he started to laugh, but it came out sounding a bit strained and awkward, like someone had started trying to throttle him right in the middle of it. Giving it up as a bad job, he cleared his throat like nothing had happened. 

No one was saying anything. It was intolerable. Nearly as intolerable as the faint shiver that rippled the blankets covering the majority of Hawk's body. Felix's hands started to curl where they rested against his biceps; through his thin sleeves, he could feel the faint bite of his nails becoming a little less faint. 

Hawk heaved a deep, rattling sigh. "If I'm dying, just tell me." 

Felix's mouth opened before Hawk had finished speaking, but Elora beat him to it. Fortunately, too, because her response was far less caustic than he knew his own would have been. "You aren't dying. It isn't poison." 

"I told you," Felix muttered peevishly under his breath. 

"But you don't know what it is," prompted Hawk after a moment's pause. 

"No," Elora gently told him. "There isn't any sign of infection and you aren't exhibiting the symptoms of a man who's been poisoned." 

"Then...?" 

“It may be that you’ve overextended your body and it’s reacting to the stress it’s been under recently.” Despite not changing her tone, Elora still somehow managed to convey a maternal sort of disapproval as she continued. “I was told you’ve been poorly provisioned on your journey north—” It was stupid, but Felix felt a twinge of guilt, like he’d been caught doing something bad, and let his gaze slip to the side when he noticed Hawk’s attention turning to him. “—and coupled with your injury, it’s possible your body has had enough of the abuse. It may hurt now, but after proper rest, warmth, and food, it’s possible that the pain will fade.” 

There were a lot of _mays_ and _possibles_ in that explanation, Felix was noticing. It made a certain kind of sense, and he was desperately hoping that the answer was that simple, but it sounded too good to be true. 

“I’m going to make you something for the pain,” Elora was still speaking. “If it hasn’t diminished at all by tomorrow, Tarlthan will go to Redcliffe and fetch the healer.” 

Felix shot her a sharp, impatient look. Maybe it wasn’t fair of him to be so presumptuous—he didn’t know these people and not only had they opened their home to him, but they’d also cared for them both and shared their food with them—but he couldn’t help thinking that perhaps they ought not gamble on Hawk’s potential recovery. What if it got _worse_ during the night instead of better? What if he died because they were so busy banking on a maybe that they missed the opportunity to save him? 

He wanted to point all of that out to her, but with Hawk lying there in earshot, he forced himself to hold his tongue. If it was stress that had done this to him, he didn’t want to make it worse by worrying him. And even if it wasn’t such a mundane cause, it certainly couldn’t _help_ him. 

As if she could hear every thought that passed through his mind, Elora turned to him and gave him an assessing look. He didn’t say anything and neither did she, but he had an uncomfortable suspicion that she knew he was thinking ungrateful thoughts. Instead of berating him for it or reminding him of all that they’d already done, she reached over and gave his forearm a squeeze. He supposed it was meant to be a form of reassurance. 

Cantankerously, he was determined not to be reassured. Not until Hawk was free of the pain, at any rate. 

“I’ll bring you some tea, too,” she told him with a solicitous pat on the arm. 

Then she and her husband were gone, leaving Felix and Hawk alone in the room. Inexplicably unsure of what to say, Felix took a deep breath in and exhaled in a huff. It wasn’t loud enough to travel outside the room to sensitive elven ears, but he felt it rather accurately conveyed his feelings on the entire matter. 

“Am I dying?” Hawk asked quietly, his voice so soft Felix almost didn’t hear it through all the noise he was making. 

“What?” Startled, his head snapped up and his arms dropped to his sides. “No, of course not. Don’t be silly.” 

Hawk’s disagreement was a little too resigned for Felix’s comfort. “It feels like it.” 

Scowling, he moved closer to the side of the bed. “Well, you’re not.” 

They weren’t going to have this conversation. Whatever the reason Hawk possibly thought they needed to have it, Felix violently, vehemently disagreed. Why waste time and energy arguing about something that wasn’t going to happen? 

Apparently Hawk was not swayed by his abrupt refusal to entertain his concerns. “Felix,” he started slowly. “If I do—” 

He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Felix knew what he was going to say and he was not going to hear it. “You miserable—!” he snapped, cutting Hawk off before doing the same to himself. “You aren’t going to die. I won’t let you.” 

A sniff was Hawk’s immediate retort. It was too weak to be anything else. Then, after the seconds started to run closer to a full minute, he murmured, “I don’t think it’s up to you.” 

“I’m a mage,” Felix said haughtily, with all the arrogance he could muster. The gravity of the conversation they weren’t going to have notwithstanding, he discovered that he could muster a great deal of it. “Of course it’s up to me.” 

“Felix…” 

Patience snapping, Felix stalked the last few feet to the edge of the bed and leaned over into Hawk’s space, so far that he nearly unbalanced and fell down on top of him. “So help me, Hawk,” he snarled at him. “If you die, I will reach into the bloody Fade and drag your miserable spirit back to your body kicking and screaming if I have to.” He jabbed viciously with his forefinger into the uninjured side of Hawk’s back, ignoring his muffled _ow!_ of discomfort. “Do you hear me?” 

Hawk made an unintelligible noise, half groan and half mumble. Then he lifted his head a little higher and grumbled, "I hear you." It seemed like that was all he was going to say on the matter. He dropped his head back to the pillow and closed his eyes. But they opened a second later, along with his mouth. 

"No," Felix interrupted, refusing to let him get started. "I won't hear anymore. Stop arguing with me and start fighting off the—" _It's_ not _poison!_ "—whatever it is."

A noise that sounded suspiciously like a whine rose from the pillow. "I don't know how." 

"Well, whining about it isn't going to do the trick." With a sigh, Felix sat down on the edge of the bed. Hawk looked miserable. Reaching out, he ran his fingertips through his sweaty hair. "Try," he urged quietly. "Just, I don't know..." 

He wished he had some legitimate advice to offer. He was a mage. Shouldn't he know magic for this? Shouldn't he be able to just wave his hand and make Hawk well? Perhaps he could and he didn't remember how. Wouldn't that be his luck? All the power at his disposal, everything he could possibly need to make this better, and he couldn’t remember a bloody lick of it. 

"Just do it," he finished after a moment. "And be quick about it." He sniffed disdainfully. "You're a sweaty, smelly mess and it makes sharing a bed with you rather difficult." Yet he hadn't gotten out of it. And he hadn't quit petting Hawk's hair. 

The meaning beneath the querulous words must have been clear enough, because Hawk didn't sound particularly remorseful when he replied, "Sorry." 

"You should be," Felix returned severely. "Make it up to me by bathing like a civilized person." 

Hawk made a breathy sort of noise. For one heart-stopping second, Felix thought he'd somehow lost the ability to breathe properly. When he realized that he was weakly laughing, he wanted to throttle him. 

"So bossy," was Hawk's amused opinion. 

"Someone has to give you direction. You'll fall apart otherwise." Felix waved his free hand at him. "Look at you. All this because I neglected to tell you _not_ to get hit by arrows." 

Despite his body turning on him, Hawk actually smiled at that. He even managed to sound a little smug. "So it's your fault, then?" 

Gently, _gently_ , Felix slapped at his hip. "Mind that sass, ser. I'm too angry with you right now to enjoy it."

Hawk shoved himself upward onto his good arm's elbow so that he could get a look at Felix's face. "Are you really?" 

Not having the heart to make him sweat it out, Felix only hummed indecisively for a moment before shaking his head. "No, I suppose not." He scratched his fingernails against Hawk's scalp, ruffling his hair as he nudged him into lying down again. "Die on me, though, and I'll change my tune." 

A tiny smile flickered at the scarred corner of Hawk's mouth. "I won't." 

"I'm glad you said so." Rearranging himself so that he was sitting with his back against the wall beside Hawk, Felix stretched his legs out on his side of the bed, crossed his ankles, and smoothed out the mess he'd made of Hawk's hair. "Now relax. The nice lady is making us breakfast. We want to be able to get you upright long enough to drink it." 

Hawk groaned. It didn't sound like it was _all_ because of the pain. "Now I'm nauseous." 

Felix laughed, feeling better than he had since before they'd been accosted on the road. If Hawk was complaining, even weakly, and trying to make jokes, it couldn't be _that_ grim. 

They weren't left to their own devices for too long. After about half an hour, during which time Hawk had squirmed closer until his head was resting on Felix's thigh and his hand was rhythmically squeezing Felix's knee every time a particularly violent spasm shook him, Elora opened the door and slipped in. She looked Hawk over as she approached the bed, a cup of tea in one hand, a mug of something that looked a bit thick and green in the other, and a small plate of bread and cheese balanced in the crook of an elbow and gave Felix a quick there-and-gone smile of reassurance after she'd finished her assessment. 

"Here you are," she said, setting everything down on the table at Felix's side. "Make sure he drinks the entire cup. After it's had time to work, see if you can get him to eat a little. Food will help." 

Felix nodded, then went one step further and touched her hand. "Thank you." 

She smiled, covered his hand with her own and gave it a pat, then withdrew from the room without another word. Hawk hadn't said anything during the exchange nor had he moved. Glancing down, Felix saw that his eyes were closed and his breathing, while not wholly normal, wasn't as labored as it had been this morning. He was asleep and it seemed like a terrible shame to wake him. 

Waffling over the decision, Felix looked from the drink to Hawk and back again. It probably could keep for an hour or two, but by the same token, he didn’t want the potency to be diminished just because he was loath to interrupt his sleep. If he wasn’t in pain, it was likely he’d be able to return to it once he’d had his medicine. Or strange elven herbal remedy or whatever it was. Felix didn’t care, so long as it did the job. 

“Hawk,” he said quietly, brushing Hawk’s hair off his forehead. “I’m sorry, but I need you to wake up.” 

Hawk gave a low groan and pressed his face into Felix’s hip. Thinking that was a bad sign for his success at getting the man awake, he was rather surprised when he noticed that Hawk was looking at him. “Something wrong?” 

Felix shook his head as he lifted the mug off the table. “No, I just need you to drink this…” He caught a whiff of it and grimaced. “…ugh, disgusting smelling concoction Elora made for you. She said it should help dull the pain.” 

Frowning, Hawk nonetheless began levering himself onto his elbow with Felix’s assistance. “That’s a terrible endorsement.” 

“It smells worse, I assure you.” 

Hawk frowned at him, scowled at the mug when Felix waved it enticingly in front of his nose and he got a smell of it himself, but took it. The contents sloshed precariously close to the rim, giving Felix an unfortunate glimpse of a future wherein they were both wearing it and smelling like the wrong side of a swamp for a week. 

"Here." He closed his hand around Hawk's, helping him steady it and get it to his mouth. "Let me help you." 

Dutifully opening his mouth, Hawk wrinkled his nose like that would decrease the scent of it and swallowed a mouthful. "Guh," was his disgusted judgment after he was done trying not to gag. "That is awful." 

Felix composed his expression into one of offended dignity. "You thought I was lying?" Hawk started trying to subtly push his hand away. "Ah ah. No, all of it." When Hawk leaned back looking mutinous, Felix pushed the mug closer. "She said all of it, Hawk." 

If looks could kill, Felix thought he would have been mildly bruised by the glower of hurt and betrayal Hawk leveled on him. But instead of arguing further, he choked the rest of it down in large gulps. When the mug was empty, he jerked away from it as if it had just stung him, coughed, and then vindictively wiped his mouth on Felix's arm. 

Hissing, Felix did precisely nothing to shove him away, even though he was now itching to bathe. He set the mug down, nudged it with his fingertips until it was at the other edge of the table and therefore no longer quite so offensive to his delicate sensibilities, and with both hands, eased Hawk back down onto the bed. 

"Rest now." He got an unintelligible mumble in response. "What?" 

Hawk lifted his face out of Felix's thigh and carefully enunciated, "Hurts too much to sleep." 

"You don't have to sleep. Just..." Forgoing the attempt to verbalize what he meant, Felix guided Hawk's head into his lap properly and immediately set to massaging his scalp and neck. With both hands free, it enabled him to really dig into those tense muscles. "How does that feel?" 

The hum that followed his question was answer enough, but Hawk rallied after a moment to add, "Good." 

"Close your eyes," Felix instructed him quietly. "Concentrate on my hands." 

"Felix..." 

From Hawk's tone, it could have either been the start of some stubbornly asinine argument or an expression of gratitude. Either way, Felix didn't want to hear it. He wasn't going to be swayed by an argument and Hawk needed the distraction. 

"Shh, Hawk," he cut him off gently. "Relax. I'm not going anywhere. I promise." 

And true to his word, Felix didn't leave the room. He continued to massage Hawk's head and neck until, despite his protest to the contrary, he drifted off, and then switched to stroking his fingers through his hair to help keep him asleep, reasoning that the herbal mixture would work faster if Hawk wasn't wake to resist it. While he slept, Felix drank his tea and nibbled at a few pieces of cheese and bread. He wasn't terribly hungry, but he wasn't trying to get Hawk back to good health just for his own body to quit on him immediately afterward. 

Before long, he was feeling stuffed up the way he'd been the previous night and was fighting off a sneezing fit. This time, with Hawk nominally better and nothing to do but sit there and think, he began to suspect that he was allergic to something he'd consumed. Unfortunately, Elora had given him bread with his stew and a few pieces of cheese for dessert last night and he couldn't isolate whether it was the food or the drink that was doing it to him. 

One particularly explosive sneeze snuck out of him and woke Hawk, but by then the medicine had taken effect. He wasn't _better_ , the pain was still there, but he said it was more manageable now. It didn't appear to be a lie; with Felix's help, he sat up, ate a bit, and drank a mug of the same tea. Felix was interested to note that Hawk wasn't beset by the sniffles or fits of sneezing, so whatever afflicted him clearly wasn't a shared annoyance. Instead of explaining any of it, Felix responded to Hawk's inquiry about the sneezing by saying that he was allergic to him. When Hawk told him that he was in trouble if that was the case, Felix just laughed. 

Although he hadn't planned on doing it, he ended up spending the entire day in bed. Between his shoulder and his body's apparent rebellion, Hawk was in no condition to get up even after the herbal remedy started to work its figurative magic. But time passed so quickly, Felix felt no compunction to complain. 

When he was awake, he and Hawk talked. Felix told him about his tentative attempts to explore his magical abilities. Hawk asked for a demonstration, but after nearly lighting the bed on fire, they both decided that perhaps such things would be more appropriate at a later time, such as when they were nowhere near the house. Hawk gave him a sly, crooked smile and told him that watching Felix show off would be motivation for him to get better. Always willing to flex his own ego, Felix told him it would be quite the show, so he'd better hurry it up before he found a replacement audience. 

They also discussed the war Elora had told Felix about, though no jokes were exchanged on that particular topic. None of it sounded familiar to Hawk; either he was as much in the dark about the whole thing as Felix or what knowledge he possessed had been lost with the rest of his memories. He did insist on having a plan in place for when they got back on the road. Whether the war was over or not, people who were unwilling to obey the cease fire might still be lurking about and Hawk was adamant that Felix, being a mage, was protected. Felix scoffed and tried to brush him off, but his protests fell on deaf ears and he capitulated on the condition that they would work on this contingency plan _after_ Hawk was suitably recovered.  

When Hawk dozed off, Felix worked on plumbing the depths of his magic. He did it carefully, not wanting to set anything else on fire, and was limited by his surroundings, but his initial conclusions were promising and gave him something to look forward to for when they were back on the road and Hawk was fussing at him like an overgrown, obnoxiously oppressive mother hen. 

After two more doses of the foul smelling tonic, a healthy yet purposefully bland dinner, and another hour's worth of conversation, they both fell asleep. As he'd been the morning prior, Felix was the first to awaken in the morning and even before he'd fully awakened, he was assessing Hawk for clues to his well-being. 

Unlike yesterday, his breathing wasn't as labored and he wasn't shaking. When Felix pressed the back of his hand to his forehead, it came away dry and warm. The worst, based purely on appearances, seemed to be over. 

"Oh, thank the Maker," Felix murmured to himself, relaxing back onto the mattress. 

He thought he'd said it quietly, but after a moment spent feeling as though he was being scrutinized, he glanced over and noticed that Hawk's eyes were open and looking at him. Before he could come up with an appropriately witty cover-up for his unbidden show of relief, Hawk smiled at him, wide and amused and beautifully pain-free. 

"Worried about me, were you?" he asked, voice oozing smug amusement. 

"Of course not," Felix denied airily, refusing to let himself dwell on just how much better that smugness sounded over the hoarse rasp of yesterday. "I just didn't want to get stuck carrying all that junk you made me take from those corpses. Now that you're not dying, you can carry it all." 

Hawk made a sound that seemed unable to commit to being a snort or a low bark of laughter and hovered awkwardly between the two. "Maker forbid I inconvenience you further." Mid-huff, he narrowed his eyes. "Though if I recall correctly, most of that _junk_ was junk _you_ wanted to take." 

Felix definitely snorted, there was no laughter vying for control of his mouth, and managed to sound disparagingly offended. "Well, you don't remember correctly. Not surprising, really, as feverish as you were." 

His mouth didn't move, but Felix was looking at Hawk's eyes and regardless of what the rest of his face was doing, they were smiling. "Perhaps that was what it was, then."

It was the sort of comment that was just vague enough to be annoyingly provocative. "What _what_ was?"  

Now his mouth was smiling too. Even the scarred side of his upper lip. "This image I have of you spending all day and night by my side, rubbing my neck and stroking my hair." 

"Pfft." It was an inelegant noise, thus Felix deemed it the perfect vehicle for his dismissal. He helped it along by waving his hand like a king sending courtiers away. "Clearly a hallucination." 

There was a part of him that was astonished that Hawk always seemed to read the tone of his comments correctly. Anyone listening to him might suspect that he intensely disliked the man and certainly had no patience for him, but Hawk never took offense or seemed to take anything he said to heart. If anything, he responded to the underlying meaning more than the words or the tone they were delivered in. Further proof, Felix thought, that they'd known each other for much longer than the few days they now remembered. 

And true to form, Hawk smiled tolerantly at him. "It certainly sounds that way." 

It was moments like this that made him wonder why he insisted on pretending that he was more put out with Hawk than he actually was. And because pretense wasn't as important as Hawk's well-being, Felix dropped the act. 

"...You are feeling better, yes?" He asked it softly, as though no one would notice the sincerity if he didn't speak loudly. "The pain is…?" 

Hawk didn't make him work for it. "Almost gone. I ache a little, but it's fading, I think." 

"I’m glad." He simply couldn't pretend otherwise. 

Another smile touched Hawk's mouth, warm and fond. "So am I." 

It was like a reflex. Felix couldn't stop himself from snapping, " _Never_ do that to me again."

And Hawk, Maker bless him, just caught Felix's hand and squeezed. "I'll try not to."


	5. Chapter 5

Despite Hawk's continued assurance that he was feeling better and able to travel, the elves insisted that they stay with them until Hawk was _completely_ healed. They kept stressing that every time the subject came up, and Felix had taken to randomly saying _completely_ whenever he caught Hawk opening his mouth, regardless if he'd been about to protest the ban on leaving the tiny farmstead or not. It wasn't as if he had a problem with the elves, they were kind and generous almost to a fault, but he felt as though he and Felix were taking advantage of their hospitality by lingering when it wasn’t strictly necessary. And though he did his best to ignore it, there was also an undercurrent of paranoia to his thoughts that the longer they stayed in one place, the faster they'd be found by their pursuers. There'd been no sign of them yet, but he wasn't willing to gamble with their lives or the lives of the people who had been gracious enough to help them in their time of need on a _yet_. 

When he tried to voice the concern privately to Felix, the man huffed and waved him off as if he was being ridiculous, but he knew that he had to be wondering the same thing. The danger hadn't abated simply because Hawk had gotten injured. Whatever he might need personally, the world wasn’t going to politely wait for him to get it. Felix, however, stubbornly refused to hear any of it.

So here they were, a week later, still living with Elora and Tarlthan. Hawk's shoulder was mending nicely; under a constant coating of healing salve and treatment with the foul-tasting elixirs Elora made and Felix forced down his throat whenever he'd decided he'd had enough and balked at it, it looked as though it had had twice as long to heal than it had. He could move it a bit, though he was careful not to overwork it and set all of his progress back. The sooner Elora declared him healed, the sooner they could depart and _everyone_ would be safer.

Even knowing that, however, it was difficult to remain confined to the house doing nothing. After two days of Felix-enforced bed rest, Hawk had been so restless that he'd rebelled and gotten up. When it had become obvious that the only way he was getting him back into bed was to bodily wrestle him into it, and thereby risk doing more harm than good, Felix had offered a compromise: no more bed rest, but no leaving the house either. For a time, Hawk had been content to putter around, but that too lost its shine before too long. He simply wasn't _made_ to sit around idly and while away the hours with inactivity. He needed to move the way he needed to breathe, and the longer he went without stretching his muscles, the shorter his temper grew.

When he began snapping at Felix more than he wasn't, he'd pushed past him and went outside, deafly tuning out his complaints. And when it became clear that Hawk didn't intend to spend his time outdoors training for battle or climbing trees or whatever his baseless fear was, Felix simmered down and they started getting along again.

After a week of shuffling around and surreptitiously exercising his shoulder to learn its limitations, Hawk was ready to risk another fight for the sake of feeling less like a useless wretch. That was no more a palatable feeling than being inactive.

As the first rays of dawn snuck over the horizon, Hawk gently untangled himself from Felix—the more time they spent sharing a bed, the more entangled they became as they slept—eased himself out of bed, and crept silently from the room. It was still too difficult to put on a coat by himself, so he decided to forego the hassle and slid the ratty old cloak they'd pilfered from the abandoned shack about his shoulders to ward off the morning chill. Suitably girded for the cold, Hawk grabbed his sword where it rested against the wall near the door and slipped from the house, talking a deep breath of the cold air the moment he was outside.

Elora and Tarlthan were gone. They'd left for town yesterday in order to stock up on supplies and weren’t due back until tomorrow afternoon. Felix had been invited to accompany them, though he'd declined in order to hang around and make sure Hawk didn't hurt himself by being a willful idiot. The reasoning had irritated him, he hadn't planned to build a new bloody barn while they'd been gone, but it had been tempered by relief as well. It wasn't as though he could _truly_ protect Felix with one useless arm, but if he wasn't there and something happened to him, he definitely wouldn't be able to do anything to help. At least this way they were still together and if worse came to worst and they were discovered, no one would be left to face it alone.

That did not, however, mean that he was going to allow himself to be coddled the entire time. He wasn't an invalid; he was a warrior of not inconsiderable skill. With all the time he'd been afforded by his convalescence for reflection, he'd been able to review his memories of the battle with the bandits. They weren't all clear, there were a few moments of blurred confusion, but he distinctly remembered throwing that knife into the one man's throat. It was within the realm of possibility that it had been simple luck that had driven the blade home in just the right location to kill him before he could do Felix harm, but Hawk doubted that that was what it was. He'd thrown true, without hesitation. That was muscle memory, not blind luck. He was _good_ at it.

And he was none too shabby with a sword, either. He hadn't been perfect; combing over the memories of the attack, he found plenty of instances where he should have moved a little differently, a bit better, faster, more efficiently. With more familiarity and practice, he couldn't help wondering what he'd be able to do.

Which was a large part of what brought him outside now. With Felix asleep, he could spend some time with his sword without being harangued for not resting or laughed at for looking foolish. Although he couldn't be certain, he suspected that the latter would bother him more than the former.

Moving away from the house, Hawk surveyed his surroundings for a suitable practice ground that would be far enough away that he would neither wake its remaining occupant nor provide a spectacle if he woke and happened to glance through the window. After doing a circuit around the house, he wandered over to the barn and peeked inside. There were supplies stacked up against the walls and piled in the corners; for gardening, Hawk figured, and for doing repairs around the home. But in the center was just what he was searching for: a large open space with plenty of room for him to swing a sword without needing to worry about hitting anything.

Shedding the cloak and setting it down on top of a crate, Hawk moved to the center of the open space. Because he _wasn't_ the willful idiot Felix insisted he was, he carefully switched the sword from his left to his right. The grip of his right hand hadn't been impacted by the arrow, he was pleased to discover. There was no weakness and only a minor twinge of pain when he tightened his hand around the hilt as hard as he could.

Unfortunately, that was where the good news ended. 

When he tried to lift it, his arm shook and pain flared in his shoulder so sharply that he nearly dropped the sword in fear that the wound had reopened. A frantic pat at the dressing with his left hand—all the while dreading what Felix would say if he had to go inside and admit what had happened—revealed no blood, and after a few moments of inactivity, the pain disappeared. Not wanting to admit defeat already, he cautiously tried again, lifting only from the elbow this time. There was a warning prickle of discomfort, but no sharp pain. Still, there wasn't much he could do with that arm, not without hurting himself, so with a sigh of irritation, Hawk switched hands again.

He was expecting more weakness and unsteadiness when he hefted the sword, though from disuse instead of injury. After finding the sword attached to his left hip and taking into account the way he'd instinctively reached for it with his right hand in battle, he knew that his right hand was his dominant one. At least where wielding a sword was concerned. But as it turned out, he wasn't as clumsy with his left hand as he'd assumed he’d be. He wasn't _perfect_ , he couldn't claim to be ambidextrous, but as he lifted it into the air and performed a few slashes and strikes, he realized that he could still use it effectively.

_Not the product of wishful thinking or unrealistic dreams of being a chevalier, then_ , he thought as he reenacted what he could remember of the battle. He moved more slowly now than he had then—without anyone trying to kill him, there was no reason to overexert himself—but he envisioned the bandits before him and took his sword through the motions to block their remembered blows. _I was trained. Well too, to ensure that I was competent with both hands._  

Who might have done so, though, was a mystery. Some friend of his family's? If he even had a family. Perhaps he'd been an orphan and had joined a local militia as soon as he'd been old enough to use a sword properly. Or an army. All countries had standing armies, hadn't they? Perhaps he'd joined up and someone—a friend, a mentor, his commanding officer—had taken the time to school him. What he did know was that he wasn't a chevalier. He hadn't the armor or the sword, for one thing, and when he thought about the occupation, he felt only a deep respect and a kind of vague, low-level longing.

Or perhaps he'd been a mercenary. Though he had no coin on him save what they'd taken from the bandits, he thought it was certainly a logical possibility. Perhaps that explained Felix too and what they were running from. Maybe Felix was part of the company and something had attacked them, decimated the rest of their companions, and they'd managed to flee.

Of course, Felix was awfully well-groomed and fastidious for a mercenary. Hawk had a difficult time seeing him spending his nights sleeping in tents and caves and tumble-down taverns that were probably filthier than the outdoors. If they had been part of a company, then it was a miracle none of their fellows had murdered Felix in a fit of exasperated pique over his near constant complaining.

No, it had to be something else. Something about the mercenary idea stuck with him, refused to cede ground to another theory, so Hawk decided to follow the idea to see where else it might lead. What if _he_ was the mercenary and Felix was a noble of some sort? Nobles hired mercenaries all the time, didn't they? Perhaps Felix had hired him to... What was it he'd told him? There was a war between mages and templars here? And Felix was a mage. What if he'd hired Hawk as a bodyguard to see him safely through the war-torn countryside? Not only was it plausible, it explained his protectiveness of the man.

Though, in all fairness, there were _other_ explanations for that. Explanations that also encompassed the affection that clearly existed between them and the way they'd taken to sleeping together without blinking an eye. But Hawk tried not to spend too much time considering those. They made him feel... It was difficult to put into words. Uneasy in his skin, as though it was a few sizes too small for his body. Impatient and anxious, like there was an hourglass somewhere slowly emptying of sand. Guilty, because he _wanted_ and he didn't believe that he was in a position where he could honorably act on that desire. It would kill him to take advantage, and without their memories, how could he be sure that he wasn’t? If he approached Felix about the possibility of something more intimate between them, how could he be sure that Felix wouldn’t say yes simply because he didn’t know with certainty what they were to each other? Moreover, how could _Felix_ be sure?  

There were no easy answers and nothing happening in the barn that he could take as a sign from the Maker about how best to resolve the issue. Thinking about it just made him restless and frustrated, and considering that his injury already made him feel restless and frustrated, it was best not to linger on the subject for too long. Shoving the matter to the back of his mind where it couldn't bother him, Hawk focused on the sword in his hand and his intention to get some well-needed exercise.

He couldn't remember any particular sword forms that might be of use, though he discovered that once he stopped thinking about what he was doing and worrying that he looked like a clumsy idiot, his body began to flow from one movement to the next with a kind of grace he hadn't been aware that he possessed. The instant he turned his attention to it, he lost it; he would stumble in the middle of some complicated footwork or nearly drop his sword, but if he just went with it and turned off his thoughts, he did all right.

Better than all right, really, though he couldn't watch himself and evaluate his ability with an observer's perspective. Still, there was a pleasant ache beginning in his left arm and sweat dampening his brow and trickling down his back. Even more important, perhaps, was that he no longer felt quite so much like a useless, incompetent lump.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Felix’s sharp voice cut into his almost meditative haze, so startlingly jarring that he jumped and stumbled a little as he spun around to face him. He knew what he'd find before he finished the revolution, but there was still something unpleasant about seeing Felix standing in the doorway, arms crossed tightly over his chest, glowering his disapproval at Hawk so intensely that it was nearly a tangible weight pressing in on him. It was the look of a man about to launch into a truly scathing lecture and he didn't know if anything he could say would be able to divert it. 

Lowering his sword in a way that was meant to be casual and came off guiltier than he wanted it to be, Hawk wiped the back of his hand across his forehead to clear off some of the sweat. "I was feeling restless." 

It was not, in retrospect, the right answer. Irritation flashed like lightning through Felix's stormy eyes. "Then go for a walk," he snapped, unfolding his arms as he stalked inside the barn. "Or is that too sensible a solution for you?" 

Hawk sighed. It looked like a retreat, it felt a little like a retreat, but he still gave ground as Felix approached, heading back to the crate he'd laid his cloak on and setting the sword down beside it. If they were going to have it out, he'd rather not be holding the thing. "I know my limitations, Felix." 

"Do you? It's barely been a week. If it wasn't for that healing salve—" 

Spotting an opportunity to head him off, Hawk cut in. "But I've had the salve. And I've used it, without fail, every day. In fact, more than once, some days." 

"So you, what? Figured you can just repair the damage you've done with more of it?" 

One day, he would learn not to try to win against Felix in verbal battles. Not today, obviously, but one day. The man had an answer for everything. It would have been admirable if it wasn't so frustrating. But more often than not it was _extraordinarily_ frustrating. 

Lest that frustration bleed into his outward demeanor already, Hawk took a deep breath before he responded. "I don't need repairing," he said very calmly, trying to project that calm through the steady way he regarded Felix. "I didn't do myself any damage."

A scowl was all he got for his trouble and an imperious flick of Felix's hand. "I'll be the judge of that. Take your shirt off." 

Hawk blinked, taken slightly aback by the demand. "Sorry?" 

"Your shirt." Sounding as though Hawk was the one overreacting to an exasperating degree, Felix stepped into his personal space and took hold of the hem of his shirt. "Take it off. I want to see your shoulder."

There was a part of Hawk that wanted to see what would happen if he didn't comply, if Felix would actually take it off himself. The rest of him recognized that allowing Felix to remove his shirt was likely a bad idea given the less than chaste direction his thoughts had a tendency to travel in recently whenever the other man was concerned. He was trying to _stop_ thinking such things, he wasn’t looking for fodder to encourage the habit.

"Fine," he huffed, slapping Felix's hand away so that he could do it himself. 

Felix didn't step back and give him room to maneuver as was polite, possibly because he thought that doing so would be tacit permission for Hawk to try to escape the inspection, so he had to do it himself. There wasn't much room, there were crates and a wall at his back, but he inched backwards as far as he could, then slipped out of the shirt with only a little struggle. His right shoulder still wouldn't let him raise his arm above his head without causing him some discomfort, which had been like that since he'd gotten hit by the arrow, but from the critical way that Felix was watching him, he knew his limited mobility was going to be blamed on his most recent indiscretion. 

Ready to use anything as an excuse to get out from under that scrutiny, Hawk turned to place the shirt on the crate behind him and decided to just stay where he was, facing the wall, left hand resting on the edge of the wooden frame. He sensed more than heard it as Felix stepped in closer, and as his forearms prickled with gooseflesh, he blamed it on the faint shifting in the currents of cool air across his exposed skin. It certainly didn’t have anything to do with a trickle of nervous anticipation that may or may not have that passed through him at the prospect of being touched by Felix while half-naked. When the light touch eventually came, Hawk was expecting it and thankfully was able to prevent himself from reacting. Felix's fingertips brushed along the edge of the wound so lightly that it nearly tickled.

"Well?" Hawk asked after a moment.

Felix made a thoughtful, though still clearly disgruntled, noise in the back of his throat. "It hasn't reopened."

The urge to say _I could've told you that_ was so strong Hawk had to pinch the inside of his lower lip between his teeth to keep his mouth shut. Instinct told him that saying anything would only prolong the argument.

The pressure of Felix's fingertips increased. "Does this hurt?"

Hawk shook his head. "No."

"How about now?" came the next question, as Felix carefully prodded the wound itself. 

"Does it hurt when you poke my wound?" Hawk asked rhetorically, with mild sarcasm. When Felix responded by jabbing at his ribs, he sighed. "Not any more than it would if I'd been sitting down this whole time." 

"You should keep your hands off of it."

That was it. He could understand why Felix was concerned, but he wasn't going to put up with this nonsense any longer. "Felix," he said sharply. "Stop."

The touch of his fingers stilled against his shoulder. "Did I hurt you?"

It was the sound of true concern, instead of argumentative stubbornness, that made him relent just a fraction. "No, but you're badgering me and that isn't helping."

Silenced followed, though Hawk thought he could hear him take a long, deep breath. He braced himself for more haranguing, but instead of a diatribe, Felix's fingertips started running gently over his shoulder before he offered softly, "I just want you to take care of yourself."

Hawk exhaled heavily, letting some of his irritation go with his held breath. "I am. But I'm restless and bored. 

And of course, there was more to it than that. He didn't want to interrupt the petting of his shoulder, but while Felix was being moderately more agreeable it was worth turning to face him to try to drive this point home. Hawk hesitated for a second, greedily soaking in the faint caress, before he spun around. Felix's hand hovered in the air, fingers half-bent in the midst of another soft stroke. His expression had changed while Hawk's back had been turned and was slightly softer now, more thoughtful than angry. 

Touching his fingertips to Felix's wrist, Hawk murmured softly, "And it will do neither of us any good for me to grow soft while we wait here."

Felix might be a mage, with as yet undiscovered magical power at his disposal, but even he grew weary if he used it for too long. Someone had to protect him when that happened and for as long as he could wield a sword, or throw a knife or possibly—he had yet to determine whether it was a skill he possessed—shoot a bow, that someone was going to be Hawk.

In the middle of opening his mouth to respond, something shifted in Felix's eyes and a sly smile curved across his lips. Reaching out, he flattened his hand against Hawk's chest and ran it down from his collarbone to his ribs. The smile only grew as Felix commented, voice noticeably lower now, "You don't feel soft to me, Hawk."

The tone shot through him like a bolt of lightning, from his ears straight to his cock. It was terrible that he was like this, so easily affected by the least little thing Felix said or did. What was even worse was that Felix wasn’t oblivious to this stupid power he held over him. He seemed to know _exactly_ what his flirtatious antics did to him and used it whenever it suited his fancy. Hawk swallowed, told himself to grow up, and gave Felix what he hoped was a suitably discouraging bland stare.

That isn't what I meant," he retorted, inordinately pleased with himself for keeping his voice steady and disinterested as Felix's hand traveled back up the middle of his chest, following the line of his sternum. 

"No?" Felix cocked an eyebrow, and as his fingers skimmed sideways and the pad of his thumb rasped over Hawk's nipple, glanced pointedly down between them.

Hawk tried, and failed, to contain the shiver such a brief touch sent through him. Felix might have been looking down, but with his hand on him, there was no way he hadn't felt it. And because he _was_ looking down and Hawk was only wearing thin trousers, it was likely that he could tell that he was starting to get aroused.

Heat rose to the surface of his skin, across his face and down his neck toward his chest. Hating himself for the reaction, but utterly incapable of controlling it, Hawk cleared his throat. "No," he repeated, voice much gruffer than it had been a moment ago. He hated that tell, too. "I didn't mean that either." 

Felix's smile was positively wicked now, as he glanced up at Hawk from underneath his eyelashes. Again came that deceptively light touch and this time he felt his nipple harden beneath it. "Are you sure about that?" Felix took a step closer, and with nowhere to go except up onto the crates, Hawk couldn't retreat away from him. He slid his knee between Hawk's, then leaned forward until his thigh was pressed to his groin. "I think you're lying to me."

This was rapidly getting wildly out of control. Hawk could feel himself hardening further against the pressure of Felix's thigh, and the closer he got to fullness, the more insistent his body's urging to rock against it became. His hands fluttered uselessly at his side for a moment, before they came to rest against Felix's hips. _To push him away_ , Hawk told himself firmly, tightening his grip to do just that. 

"Felix," he started, licking dry lips. "You—"

The deliberate scrape of a thumbnail cut him off, and Hawk savagely bit down on the inside of his mouth to keep the noise that threatened to spill out of him silent.

If sin had a physical form, it was Felix's mouth as it twisted into a smirk of predatory satisfaction. "I like that."

Hawk blinked, thrown by what seemed to be a non sequitur. "What?" It sounded more like a croak than a word.

"The way you say my name." Felix leaned closer, somehow managing to rub his thigh against Hawk in such a way that this time, he couldn't stop the low groan from escaping his throat. "Do it again."

Felix was going to kill him. That was what this was. Death by cruel teasing. Hawk's fingers flexed almost spastically against Felix's hips. "Felix, please..."

"Yes," Felix hissed, so close now that Hawk could feel the warmth of his breath on his lips. "Just like that." 

Whatever objections he had to this were rapidly dwindling to nothing. He wanted Felix. By his actions, it seemed reasonable to assume that Felix wanted him too. There was nothing wrong with giving in to it. There was nothing wrong with finding comfort in each other when there was so little of it they could trust about the world at large. Except, Hawk thought even as he ached to give in to the pleasurable spell it felt like Felix was weaving over him, there _was_ something wrong with it.

Felix had the upper hand and, just like any of the games they made up and played together, would probably be impossible to deal with if he got his way. Not only that, but Hawk was feeling entirely too passive for his liking. 

The thought yanked him out of the lusty haze blanketing his brain and his eyes, which had been starting to drop in preparation for a kiss it seemed certain he would be getting, snapped open. Taking a firmer hold on Felix's hips, Hawk ignored the way his shoulder started to protest and spun them both around. Having just been in this position, he knew how far away the crates were and pressed closer, crowding Felix up against them.

Felix's eyes were wide, Hawk's actions evidently having taken him by surprise, but he didn't look put out by the sudden reversal. In fact, his pupils were blown open in a way Hawk could only assume was arousal.

"Felix," he said again, this time in a tone much firmer than what he'd previously used. "I—"

He trailed off as Felix sucked in a breath, stormy eyes watching him with such an avid intensity that he nearly forgot what he was going to say. A moment later, he _did_ forget, because Felix absently licked his lip and somehow such a small action was the most erotic thing Hawk could remember seeing.

Gamely, he tried again. "I—" And broke off before he could get started because Felix slid his hands, palms flat against his flesh, firmly up his chest.

"You what, Hawk?" he prompted with that same intoxicating smile.

"I want to—" This time it wasn't pleasure that derailed him but an unexpected twinge of discomfort, as Felix's hands curved over the ridge of his shoulders and one passed too close to the wound. It tightened the corners of his eyes in a slight wince and Felix, damn him and his sharp eyes, noticed.

Hissing, he pulled his hands away. "I'm sorry, I—"

"Forget it." It hadn't hurt _that_ badly and as he watched, Hawk could see the arousal in Felix's eyes changing to concern. It was touching, in a way, but it wasn't the sort of touching he craved right now. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not," Felix shot back, straightening up and placing a hand on Hawk's chest as if he meant to nudge him back. "You need rest. Not—"

"What I _need_ ," Hawk all but growled, leaning forward against Felix's hand. "—is you."

Felix swallowed, drawing Hawk's attention to the way his throated bobbed like a running hare attracted a wolf. "Your wound—" he started, though the conviction in his voice was a lot weaker than it had been a minute ago.

"Is fine."

The protest got weaker. "But..."

Hawk pressed more of his weight into Felix's hand, leaning closer until his lips were just out of reach. "It's. Fine," he enunciated slowly, making each word a sentence.

This close, Felix's eyes were a little blurry, but Hawk could still detect a certain amount of stubbornness in how deep the fine lines near the corners of them were. However, he was relieved to hear that it was not enough to chase the darkening edge out of Felix's voice. "Not for what I want to do to you." 

That was all it took to snap the thin thread of patience that had been keeping Hawk from closing that last tiny bit of distance. "So heal it," he muttered, unthinking and uncaring about the injury, as he moved in to _finally_ claim Felix's mouth. 

Once again, it was the wrong thing to say. 

Felix jerked back, looking faintly affronted. "I told you," he said, scowling. "I don't know how." 

Hawk groaned, though this time it wasn’t arousal that made him do it, just thwarted frustration and aggravation. "Not the time, Felix."

There wasn't a whole lot of room to maneuver and Hawk's hands were still on his hips, firmly in the way. He started to put his own there, brushed into the back of Hawk's, and redirected the motion to gripping Hawk's arms just below the biceps. "I think this is exactly the time. You're not thinking clearly. Anything you do could aggravate—"

"I'm already aggravated," Hawk grumbled, then heaved a heavy sigh. He straightened up enough to get space between their mouths to argue, but he didn't step out of Felix's personal space or let him go. "You're getting much better with your magic. I've _seen_ you practicing with it."

Felix shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. Knowing how to do some things isn't the same as knowing how to do _every_ thing."

That was true. It was also terribly defeatist. And it wasn’t just Hawk’s still hard cock angling for more friction that made him think that way. "You could still try."

"Yes, and likely make everything worse."

Hawk rolled his eyes. "What's the worst that could happen?"

The withering look Felix gave him seemed to say that he was an utter idiot and no one in the world would ever be able to fathom how he put up with him. “I could tear flesh or muscle. Break bone. Harm instead of heal.” He paused for a few seconds, then apparently decided that that was still too vague for someone of Hawk’s limited intellectual capacity to grasp and elaborated. “I could, I don’t know, set you on fire.”

As undeniable as Felix’s affinity for fire was, Hawk highly doubted it and said as much, in the same no-nonsense tone he would use to tell someone that water was indeed wet. “But you won’t.” 

Felix’s voice turned peevish, the way it did whenever Hawk tried to insist that he knew better about something. Half the time, it was true that he didn’t. However, the other half tended to come out in his favor, though Felix rarely conceded the point when pressed. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

If it would have been possible to fit them there, Felix would have crossed his arms over his chest. His shoulders twitched like he might make a go of it anyway, but in the end, he settled for a scowl. “Yes, because you’re suddenly a mage.”

Hawk released one of his hips, but only so that he could cup Felix’s jaw in his palm and urge him to meet his eyes. “Because I trust you,” he told him softly.

Whoever they'd been, whatever they'd done, wherever they'd come from, Hawk knew that one fact with a certainty that he felt straight through the core of himself. Felix would not hurt him. Something of that certainty must have shown on his face; the irritation in Felix's eyes faded and his expression softened slightly.

"Hawk..." he murmured, neither an objection nor agreement but something hovering uneasily between the two.

"Try," Hawk urged, now more invested in proving that his faith in him was warranted than in finding out what it was that Felix wanted to do to him that required he be uninjured. That desire was still there, the arousal hadn't left him yet, but it had become muted, pushed aside in pursuit of something more important.

Felix didn't look convinced. "I don't want to hurt you."

He gently shook his head. "You won't."

Snorting, Felix shifted his weight in such a way that Hawk didn't know if he was trying to get closer to him or just more comfortable. Whatever the case, it brought his hips too close to Hawk's for a moment and he felt the brief press of something firm against his leg. It didn’t take him long to identify what that was. Felix was hard. Perhaps harder than Hawk, who had softened somewhat during their conversation as his focus had shifted. 

Now, however, it shifted right back, so fast it was almost dizzying.

"It's all well and good that you say so," Felix was saying, "but that doesn't make it reality."

"No," Hawk agreed. "But I know what will."

He was being too agreeable. Felix eyed him suspiciously. "What?"

Stepping in until they were pressed flush together, Hawk slid his knee in between Felix's legs and leaned in until the hard muscle of his thigh rested against his cock. "Motivation."

Felix inhaled sharply. "That's not—"

Easing the weight off his leg, Hawk lightened the pressure against him, then rocked his hips forward so that his thigh was pressed in again. He lowered his head and murmured coaxingly in Felix's ear, deliberately breathing warm breath over the lobe, "Try, Felix."

He couldn’t be sure which sensation did it, but something prompted Felix's hips to twitch. Hawk felt the press of his cock against his leg and rocked into him again, giving back a hint of friction. A strange sound, half breathless chuckle and half gasp, slipped from Felix's mouth. "This is—" He rolled his hips again, firmer than before, and Hawk knew the action a conscious one this time. " _You're_ ridiculous. You can't just—"

Just feeling Felix's erection was enough to make his own cock ache for contact, but Hawk was a patient man. He had a mission now. One that was unexpectedly erotic and he meant to see it through to whichever ending it was heading toward.

"You'd do the same thing," he pointed out reasonably, then used the grip he had on Felix's hip to pull him into the next press of his thigh.

They both knew it was true. That was evident when Felix didn't waste his breath arguing with him. Uttering another sound, this one too close to a soft moan to be mistaken for anything else, he let his head droop forward and pushed in against Hawk's leg himself. 

"You want this." Although Hawk didn't really need the confirmation—Felix's body was answering that question without his needing to ask it—he still wanted to hear him say it.

He didn't get it quite the way he wanted, but there was no misunderstanding Felix's meaning when he responded, voice no longer quite as smooth as it had been before, "Utterly beside the point."

Hawk's lips brushed his ear. When he felt Felix shiver, he smiled against his skin and said, voice velvety soft, "You want me." 

Felix's hands were clutching at him now, gripping tightly to his arms, one over his forearm and the other over his bicep. His protest was so weak that they both knew it was only for the appearance of the thing that he bothered. "That doesn't mean—" 

There was no sense in letting him waste his breath on a disagreement that wasn’t even true. “You can have me, Felix.” His sincerity was audible, and by the tiny, needy sound that Felix made in response, he heard it clearly. Encouraged, Hawk continued. “Heal my shoulder and you can have me right here.” 

That made Felix’s hips still so that he could lean back far enough to get a good look at Hawk’s face. “In the dust and filth of a _barn_?” he asked in disbelief, his eyebrows rising dramatically. “Are you mad?” 

Hawk shrugged. “Then I’ll have you.” 

“Ha,” Felix barked out, still managing to sound haughty despite his arousal, and shook his head. “I think not.” 

Yet he leaned into Hawk’s thigh again, a long, sinuous undulation that caused his eyelids to lower until only a sliver of grey was visible. Whether Felix ever tried to fix his shoulder or not, the sight of him taking his pleasure so wantonly from Hawk made the whole effort so very, _very_ worth it. And seeing Felix’s enjoyment so plainly made it easy for Hawk to speak his mind without worrying self-consciously over how he was going to sound. 

“In my mouth,” he amended, rolling his hips forward to meet Felix. He kept his one hand securely gripping Felix’s hip, but the other carded through the short hairs at the back of his head before cupping his neck and pulling his head forward. Hawk leaned in, setting his mouth right next to his ear, speaking the words into his ear as much as he was shaping them into his skin. “I’ll go down to my knees right here.”

Felix hissed an almost unintelligible curse, the smooth rock of his hips momentarily interrupted by an abrupt, jerky stutter. _Wasn’t expecting that, were you?_ Hawk thought smugly. 

He smiled and deepened his voice still further. When he licked his lips, he made sure that the tip of his tongue flicked briefly over the edge of Felix’s ear. “Unlace your trousers.” He punctuated the statement with a pointed press of his thigh. “Take you in hand. Get a feel for the weight of you against my palm.” 

A quiet groan was muffled against the side of Hawk’s throat. In appreciation, he nipped hard enough at Felix’s ear to make him buck against him. “Then I’ll take you into my mouth. And I’ll stay there, licking and sucking, until you spend down my throat.”

The bite of Felix’s fingernails got stronger. Hawk knew he would be seeing the marks of it tomorrow and instead of being put off by the thought, it just made him feel supremely satisfied and proud of himself. 

“Fuck...” was the best Felix could manage.

Hawk chuckled, low and dark in the base of his throat. “That's the idea, Felix.”

One of Felix's hands slid up his arm to his shoulder. At first, Hawk thought he was just trying to steady himself. There was nothing frantic or uncontrolled about the way they were moving together. He kept the rolling of his hips slow and even, and for the most part, Felix maintained the same rhythm. Once or twice he lost it, but he recovered so quickly that it never looked graceless or desperate. Yet Felix's face was flushed and there was the faintest sheen of sweat near his temple that suggested that however steady he _appeared_ to be, the same could not be said for the way he was feeling.

It wasn't until something warm and a bit prickly skittered over his skin that Hawk realized that Felix wasn't looking for balance. He was trying, somewhat sloppily, to heal him. It was such a strange sensation that Hawk shivered and for once it was his hips that stilled mid-motion, though once he became aware that he’d stopped he hastened to catch up. His shoulder was getting warmer and there was an odd itching beneath his skin, but the magic was erratic, licking over him like a rough, scratchy tongue. Not unpleasant, though not precisely pleasant either; Hawk, unable to remember if he'd ever felt magic used on him, couldn't tell if the sensation was a normal one or not.

"I..." Felix shook his head. An instant later, the magic disappeared. "Hawk, I can't. It's too..."

There were a number of ways Felix could finish that statement. Hawk imagined half a dozen of them, running the gamut of Felix claiming his ability simply wasn't that good to being too distracted to concentrate properly. Given that the former would have likely spawned another argument, Hawk decided that he would believe the latter, regardless of whether that was the direction Felix had intended to go with it. Besides, being distracted was also the more realistic of the options his imagination offered.   

"Shh," he interrupted before he could hear the end of it, tipping his head forward to rest his forehead against Felix's. It made him open his eyes to meet Hawk's, though they were so close together that the sight of them was a tad blurry. "It's all right. You don't have to try now."

Felix would undoubtedly deny that the sound he made then was a petulant whine, but Hawk was there. He heard it. "But I want--"

"I know." He stroked the back of Felix's neck with his fingertips, ruffling the ends of his hair. "We'll figure something out."

An unintelligible grumble was the only response he got for a moment, as Felix arched his back and rubbed up against him in a way that felt equal parts frustrated and regretful. Then he said, enunciating more clearly this time, "Somewhere that _isn't_ a barn."

Chuckling softly, Hawk rutted against him a few more times, feeling rather regretful himself that this was going to have to end before either of them found release, and kissed the spot just behind Felix's jaw. "No barns. I promise."

Felix stiffened against him, fingernails digging sharply into his flesh. Hawk froze, the abrupt change in his demeanor alarming. Had he hurt him? Did he object to the kiss? Hawk recalled a bit of teasing at doing so earlier and mouthing around at his ear, but he hadn't objected to any of that. Or to the blatantly sexual rutting they’d been doing. Still, if he'd caused offense somehow... 

Drawing back so that he could see him properly, Hawk asked with concern, "Are you..." The question died as he got a good look at Felix's expression: face slack, eyes closed, biting at his lip. Hawk stilled all over again, this time in surprise. "Maker, did you just—?"

One of Felix's eyes cracked open and the relaxed set of his mouth turned tense. "Not another word," he growled roughly.

Which was, of course, confirmation.

Hawk stared at him, feeling his lips twitching and wholly unable to make them stop. He hadn't meant to get him off. He'd _wanted_ to do it, what he'd said to him hadn't been nonsense spoken in the heat of the moment, but he'd wanted to do more deliberately than he evidently had. With his hands or his mouth or even... "You did."

He probably should have kept his mouth shut. He probably also shouldn't have been so obviously fighting back a grin. Felix was glaring at him; whatever post-orgasmic bliss he'd found slipping through his fingers as his dignity objected to Hawk's amused satisfaction.

"Hawk..." That was clearly a warning. The sort of warning a wise man would take. Hawk didn't feel like being a wise man.

"Now imagine what I could do if I was trying," he said smugly, smirking.

Making a thoroughly disgusted noise, Felix slapped a hand against his chest, shoving him away. Hawk went with it, laughing as he stepped back. Unable to resist, he glanced down, knowing that Felix would see him do it, and took in the sight of his softening erection, covered by thin fabric that didn't leave terribly much to the imagination and was now marred by a rather telling wet spot.

The sight, not to mention what they'd just done, made him a lot less self-conscious about still being hard than he would have been earlier. Instead of feeling like he ought to turn away or apologize, he just grinned cockily at Felix.

Who scowled and fussed with his tunic. "You're insufferable."

"I'm just taking pride in a job well done," Hawk corrected him gleefully, stepping in close again to reach around him and grab his discarded shirt. Getting it on was easier than getting it off; by the time he'd stepped backward, he had it on and settled on his shoulders.

"You're insufferable _and_ an ass."

Although the impulse to do it was strong, Hawk resisted and _didn't_ wink at him. "And you like it." 

"What I'd _like_ is for you to stop parading around and go rest like you're supposed to be doing," Felix snapped, picking up the thread of the argument that had started all of this as if nothing else had happened.

Between his made-up sword forms and the unexpected activity afterward, it was more exercise than Hawk had gotten prior to his injury and he was feeling tired. He was also sweaty and in need of a wash. It wouldn't do to admit to any of that, but he could forestall a protracted argument by going inside. The bow wasn't necessary, but Hawk sketched it to him anyway. "As you wish."

Picking up his sword, he leaned it against his good shoulder and started toward the door. The cloak remained where he’d tossed it, now that he was too warm to need it. Felix could bring it inside whenever he deigned to follow. Hawk got only a few steps before he stopped and glanced back at Felix, who looked torn between indignant fuming and embarrassment. "Maybe you better get some rest, too. You look a little worn out." 

Had there been anything to throw at him, Hawk was pretty sure Felix would have done it from the way his eyes flashed. "I hate you."

No he didn't. His incessant nagging about Hawk's health was proof enough of that, to say nothing of the attempted seduction. Which, Hawk was thrilled to realize, he'd beaten Felix at without actually trying. It was the kind of boost to his ego he felt he needed. He would never achieve Felix's casual arrogance, nor did he want to, but he also wasn't some haplessly clumsy mess around people either. 

"I think I win this round," he observed, smirking again at Felix.

His scowl deepened. "So much."

Unperturbed, Hawk gave him a wave with his free hand. "On that note, I'd best go lay down. That's what you wanted, right? Me sprawled out on the bed?"

If he was anyone else, he was pretty sure Felix would have blushed. There was just something about the hunted look in his eyes. But Felix wasn’t anyone else and narrowed his eyes instead. "I _really_ hate you." 

Turning around, Hawk made his way to the door, whistling a cheery, but unfortunately tuneless, attempt at a song. Evidently he hadn't any musical leanings in his forgotten past. But he was undaunted and kept it up, mostly for the sake of being obnoxious. 

It worked, too, because as he was stepping outside, he heard Felix snap, "Hawk!"

To which he couldn't resist calling back as he disappeared around the side of the barn, "Better get working on your healing, Felix!" 

*     *     *     *     * 

After a wash up, Hawk _did_ lay down. And though he never admitted it, after quite a few hours outside, Felix came inside bearing the telltale look of exhaustion that accompanied the extensive use of magic. Whether he'd actually been working on his healing abilities, Hawk didn't know, because the moment he glanced his way, Felix had snapped at him and in the interest of peace, he hadn't pursued teasing him. 

Eventually, once he realized that Hawk wasn't waiting to bring up what happened earlier and continued not teasing him, Felix stopped huffing and scowling at him. They spent the remaining hours of daylight playing card games they made up on the spot, using coins from the purses they'd taken from the bandits. Hawk, they discovered, was _terrible_ at cards, and that helped to further assuage Felix's bruised ego. By the time night fell and they were cooking what meager dinner they were able to make, they were laughing and joking with one another again. 

Thoughts of what would happen when they retired to sleep hadn't plagued Hawk all day, but as they were cleaning up and making their way to their borrowed bedroom, he did wonder if things would be awkward between them now. The concern proved unnecessary. Felix fussed over his wound like usual, slathered more salve over it, and once they were lying down, installed himself at Hawk's side, arm draped over his waist and cheek resting against his uninjured shoulder.  

As Hawk was slipping into sleep, he heard Felix murmur, "I'll try tomorrow." 

It roused him enough to open his eyes. In the darkness, it was difficult to see more than the vague outline of his shape. "Hmm?" 

"Healing your shoulder," Felix elaborated. "I'll try in the morning." 

Untucking his hand from beneath his pillow, Hawk reached over and combed his fingers through Felix's hair. "If you're ready." 

Felix made a sound like a soft chuckle. "I'm not getting ready by putting it off. You're the only one injured around here to experiment on." 

_And thank the Maker for that_ , Hawk thought, petting through Felix's hair again. "Then you can experiment on me to your heart's content."

A wordless hum was Felix's response, followed by lightly rubbing his cheek against Hawk's shoulder. Silence settled over them again, and it was just as he was beginning to think that Felix had fallen asleep, he heard him mumble quietly, "Get some sleep, Hawk."

And sleep he did, quite easily in fact, until the urgent hiss of Felix’s voice woke him up some time later.

“Hawk,” Felix was whispering frantically, shaking his uninjured shoulder. “Hawk, wake up!”

The urgency in his voice reached into his subconscious and pulled him awake before he was able to comprehend what was going on. His eyes opened, bleary and unfocused, but all he could see was the dark shape of Felix looming over him. “What?” His voice was a harsh rasp that Felix immediately hushed. Quieter, he cleared his throat and asked more distinctly, “What is it?”

“There are people outside.”

People. Not Elora and Tarlthan. It sent a jolt of adrenalin through him, galvanizing him into motion. Hawk sat up so fast his shoulder protested, but he ignored it, slipping from bed as quietly as possible. 

“How many?” he asked quietly, fumbling for his boots.

Now that he was awake, Felix joined him. “I don’t know,” he said, yanking on his boots. “More than two.”

Which meant that it wasn’t the elven couple. Either it was another group of bandits or they’d been found. Hawk wanted to believe the former, but the prickling of his skin and the way his heart was pounding a driving beat of <i>go, go, go, go</i>, he knew they weren’t so lucky. 

He wondered if this is what had happened the last time. If they’d been peacefully sleeping and had been chased from their beds. Their lack of equipment and proper clothing seemed to lend credence to the idea. But if it was, he wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. 

Grabbing the cloak, Hawk secured it around his neck and tossed his jacket to Felix. Without a word, Felix pulled it on while Hawk gathered the supplies they’d stolen from the dead bandits, thanking the Maker neither of them had ever bothered to unpack it all. The change of clothes, the money, even the weapons were still there. Felix took the largest pack before taking hold of his staff. Hawk took the smaller, then belted on his sword.

“Do you think they sold us out?” Felix whispered as they crept out of the bedroom. 

“Who? The elves?” Hawk didn’t want to believe it, but the timing was certainly convenient.

That they’d offered to take Felix with them might have been proof that they weren’t a part of whatever was happening now, or it was damning evidence that they’d been trying to split them up and make them easier to capture. Hawk hoped that wasn’t the case even while he was pragmatic enough to allow for its likelihood.

“You have to admit that it makes a certain amount of sense.” 

Frowning, Hawk made his way to the nearest window, flattened himself against the wall, and peered out. “If they did, we’re going to make them work for it,” he said darkly, trying and failing to count the number of shapes he could see moving around out there.

Too many. Thanks to how little light there was to see by, that was all he knew for sure. There were too many out there for the two of them to take. They were going to have to sneak out and make a run for it. And pray they could make it before anyone noticed that they were gone. 

Felix must have looked outside too, for he grabbed Hawk’s sleeved and tugged him in the direction of the elven couple’s room on the other side of the house. “Let’s try over here.” 

Through that window, there was nothing but the hulking shape of the barn and some trees. Even after watching for a few seconds, Hawk could detect no movement. There wasn’t time to deliberate on what course of action to take. As it was, he felt like they’d waited too long to escape. They needed to go _now_. 

“Come on,” he said, opening the window as silently as possible. “We’re going to run.” 

There was no objection from Felix, just a curious, “To where?” 

“Away from them,” Hawk answered. “That’s all that matters. First we’ve got to make it to the other side of the barn.” Unless there were people waiting for them there, he hoped that it would block the view of their pursuers long enough for them to disappear into the night. 

Swinging a leg over the windowsill, Hawk looked back at Felix. “Let me check it out. Once it’s clear, follow.” 

From the faint motion he detected, he could only assume that Felix was nodding his agreement, and without time to say anything else, he finished climbing out. He took two steps away from the house, then paused to listen. The sound of voices reached him, but they were too far away to make out what they were saying and they weren’t coming from in front of him. That was all he needed to know. 

“ _Now_ ,” he hissed, and Felix came out behind him, staff at the ready. 

Together, they hurried across the yard to the barn, eyes scanning the darkness, alert for discovery. The sound of voices grew louder, though it continued to remain behind them. _Good luck_ , Hawk thought, _until they enter the house and see that we’re gone._ Then they would know to widen their search. 

By the time they reached the barn, Hawk’s heart was pounding so hard that he was surprised it couldn’t be heard all the way back to the house. Still no shouts of alarm came, still no sword-wielding horror came springing from the darkness to kill them, and when they came around to the far side of the barn, they saw nothing but the dark shapes of trees and bushes and rocks. More forest, but thankfully nothing threatening. 

“We’ve got to stop doing this,” Felix muttered, voice tight and slightly breathless. 

“What?” 

“Running through the woods in the middle of the night,” he explained, then added with feigned irritation, “You’ve been lying to me. You told me that you didn’t make a habit of it.” 

Maybe it was the panic that wanted to take over, or perhaps it was Felix’s refusal to panic, that made him want to laugh. He didn’t, they couldn’t chance being overheard, but he returned the complaint with an arch, “You said the same thing.” 

Beside him, Felix sniffed disdainfully. “Then we’re both liars. Perfect pair, I suppose.” 

Reaching over, Hawk briefly clasped his arm in a reassuring squeeze. “Ready to run?” 

“Only if you promise to take me somewhere nice next time,” Felix returned, and for just an instant, Hawk thought he caught the flash of his smile. “No more visits to the hovels of traitorous elves.” 

“All right,” he nodded, releasing him. “No more traitorous elves.”

And with that, they ran, leaving the farmstead and their far too brief respite behind them.


	6. Chapter 6

They traveled through the night, adrenaline keeping them moving when exhaustion threatened to slow their steps. There was no way to know if their pursuers had discovered their trail and were now following them away from the elves' farm or if they'd managed to lose them. So far, there had been neither sight nor sound of pursuit.

In their flight, they hadn't chosen a direction. They'd been in too great a hurry to get away and had based their path on what seemed most likely to keep them out of reach of those who were chasing them. They didn't speak much either, save to offer each other a few words of encouragement or warning whenever an obstacle barred their way. But Felix knew that the same concern plagued them both. Where would they go? Where _could_ they go?

He worried at it like he might the scab of a healing wound, picking at it until the mounting anxiety made him start to feel strangely claustrophobic. Then he had to stop and shove the distracting thoughts to the side so that he could breathe. Nothing could be done about it right now and fretting about it, he knew, wouldn't solve the problem. It would just make him too scattered to offer constructive ideas when the time came to plan their next move.

_If such a time comes,_ he thought darkly. _Perhaps we'll be found before we have to make a decision_.

When the sun rose, it cast its light on a wilderness that looked much like the one they'd been trudging through for so many days already. Rolling hills scattered with trees, large boulders dotting the landscape, stands of dense forest, and in the distance, the snow-capped peaks of some great mountain range. It was impossible to tell where they were, if they'd backtracked along the distance they'd traveled to reach the elves' farm or if they'd gone in an entirely different direction.

_We're going to die out here_ , Felix thought bleakly. _If we aren't found, we're going to starve to death in the middle of nowhere or freeze from the cold._ He couldn't decide which fate was worse. They were all equally miserable and promised an agonizing end.

Hawk hadn't said anything for some time, though he'd never faltered or lagged behind. If he wasn't keeping pace with him, he was forging ahead, sword in his good hand, to be certain that the way ahead was free of anything that might do them harm. At the moment, he was beside him again, and with dawn's light illuminating the sky, Felix could see him clearly when he glanced over at him.

His pale skin was paler than normal, a grayish tinge to his pallor that sent a trill of alarm through Felix. It wasn't a surprise. They'd kept a punishing pace through the night and whatever he claimed, Hawk _wasn't_ well enough for this. Felix tried to subtly fall back to see if his wound had started bleeding again and was soaking through his clothes, but Hawk was too alert for that. He looked back at him as soon as Felix left his peripheral vision.

"Are you all right?"

Torn between rolling his eyes and snapping at him, Felix contented himself with a scowl. "Are _you_?" he demanded, narrowly eyeing Hawk's face.

"Yes?" He looked surprised that Felix was asking, like he couldn't imagine where the question might have come from.

But he wasn't all right. Despite his stubbornness, Felix could see the signs of discomfort elsewhere too. There was a faint hunch to his shoulders and a squint to his eyes that didn't seem appropriate in the soft light of morning. Felix wondered if his shoulder was bothering him or if the inexplicable pain from a week ago had reared its disturbing head. Elora had theorized that it came from stress and if this wasn't stressful, he didn't know what was.

They needed to stop. They both needed to rest and Felix needed to check Hawk's injury. More than that, he needed to heal it. He'd said that he would and looking at him, he felt as if it had become more imperative that he make the attempt now that they were on the run, not less. But Hawk, he knew, would probably keep going until he physically couldn't continue anymore.

"I'm tired," Felix announced querulously, letting his pace drag even further. It galled him that he might appear to be the weak one of the two, but if Hawk wouldn't help himself, it fell to Felix to do it for him. "And my feet hurt. When are we going to stop?"

It was both infuriating and fascinating to watch how Hawk's demeanor changed whenever he thought Felix was in distress. The bloody fool would push himself beyond his limits without a thought, but the moment Felix voiced discomfort or fatigue, he became solicitous and eager to alleviate the problem. Felix would be touched if it wasn't so frustrating to watch him refuse to see to his own well-being.

"How much longer do you think you can last?" Hawk asked, giving him a searching look. Then his gaze shifted away to scan the area around them.

"That depends," Felix responded tartly. "Are we being chased by monsters or imaginary men?"

Hawk's attention shifted back to him. He looked vaguely piqued. "Those men last night weren't imaginary and you know it."

Of course he did. He'd been the first to realize they were out there. "Yes," he agreed. "But they aren't here now, are they? We've neither seen nor heard anything for hours."

"Because we've kept moving," Hawk said reasonably.

"And we won't be able to _keep_ moving if we don't stop to rest," Felix shot back irritably. "If those men have half a brain between them all, they'll have stopped for the night by now. They'll be refreshed once they're back on the trail and where we will be?" It was a rhetorical question. He didn't give Hawk the opportunity to answer it before he was snapping, "Half-asleep and then no doubt literally dead on our feet."

Hawk sighed. "Felix..."

" _Now_ , Hawk," Felix interrupted. "Or you can damn well go on without me."

Ultimatums had to be used sparingly with stubborn people, he'd decided early on. Too many and Hawk would become inured to them and they'd lose their effectiveness. But he wasn't joking now and to prove it, he stopped in the middle of the non-existent path they were currently trudging along. Hawk continued on for a few steps, not realizing that he wasn't still keeping up, but when he did, he too stopped and turned to look back at him in exasperation.

"We can't stop in the open," he told him tightly. Felix could tell that he was trying to be patient with him, but exhaustion and pain was starting to make his valiant effort unravel.

"Then find somewhere suitably concealed," Felix returned, then added, before Hawk could use his willingness to compromise as an excuse to keep plodding along for hours. "In the vicinity."

"Fine," Hawk finally snapped, giving in with poor grace. "Are you going to stand there while I do or are you planning to accompany me?"

It wouldn't do to make him wander in search of a campsite and then travel back here to collect him. Even Felix could see that there was no place with ample concealment anywhere within view. They _would_ have to walk a little ways yet, at least.

"I'll come," Felix replied with a shrug, keeping his voice as casual as possible. "But we are stopping, Hawk. I mean it."

Hawk turned to continue moving, but he wasn't so far away that Felix couldn't hear him mutter under his breath, "I'm not trying to make this difficult for you."

It was _almost_ enough to make Felix apologize. _He_ wasn't the one suffering. No more than he had any of the other days they'd spent traveling through the interminable countryside, anyway. But telling Hawk that he was kicking up a fuss for his sake would just end in Hawk brushing off his concern and running himself ragged until he was in worse shape than he already was. Or until he keeled over dead. Perhaps that was simply Felix being melodramatic, but he remembered quite vividly Hawk writhing in agony on that bed. And if that happened out here in the middle of the wilderness, with no one to help them and no means by which to care for him...

Shaking his head to banish the dark thoughts, Felix picked up the pace so that he was once again walking at Hawk's side. Unwilling to leave it all on Hawk, he too searched for a place to retire for a few hours. And it wasn’t long before they found one. They turned to each other practically simultaneously as they crested a hill and saw a number of hills and valleys stretching out as far as the eye could see. There were large boulders piled against rocky hillsides and clusters of trees everywhere.

"There has to be a cave or two down there," Hawk said quietly, awkwardly lifting his weak arm to shade his eyes with his hand. Felix saw him glance his way. "Will you be able to make it?"

Even though he was doing all of this for Hawk’s sake, Felix found himself still having to grit his teeth against a sharp retort about how being a mage didn’t automatically make him weak. "Yes," he said tightly instead. "That will be fine."

Hawk wasn't subtle about the look he gave him, though he didn't argue with him either. They moved down the slope of the hill, scanning the area now not just for danger but also for a cave in which to shelter. Thankfully, the search was a short one. The mouth of the cave was concealed by a number of trees; if Felix hadn't happened to look in its direction from a particular angle, they likely never would have seen it. After a cursory inspection, Hawk had deemed it acceptable and they'd gone inside.

It wasn't a large cave. There was just barely room enough to stand and lay down in it, but since they weren't planning to stay there indefinitely, Felix didn't complain about the tight quarters. He gave it a few minutes, waiting until Hawk had taken a seat beside him. Then he stood, fully prepared to use leverage and magic to keep him there if he tried to rise, and stepped around in front of him.

"Take that off," he demanded, pointing an imperious finger at Hawk's shirt.

Nonplussed, Hawk blinked up at him. "What?"

" _Now_ , Hawk," Felix ordered, then, deciding that waiting around for him to do it was asking for trouble, he unceremoniously nudged Hawk's legs apart and knelt between them.

Unclasping the cloak Hawk was wearing, Felix pushed it off his shoulders and started tugging up his shirt. Surprise kept Hawk immobile and pliant for a few seconds, but too soon he pulled himself together and put a hand between them, pushing Felix back.

"What are you doing?"

Felix slapped his hand away. "Taking care of you, you bloody idiot."

"You don't have to—"

"Clearly, I do," he retorted, cutting Hawk off. "You look terrible. You're obviously in pain. Now stop fighting me and cooperate for once in your damn life."

Hawk stared at him. It was the kind of considering stare that told Felix he was working out his rather harmless deception. But instead of turning it into an argument, or insisting that he keep moving since Felix wasn't as tired as he'd claimed, Hawk merely sighed, pushed Felix's hands away again, and took off his shirt himself.

"Move," he told him gently, nudging Felix's hip with his knee.

"What do you mean?" Felix asked suspiciously, refusing to budge.

"You want to see my shoulder and I can't turn around with you sitting here," Hawk explained, showing more patience than he had previously.

Casting him one last suspicious look, Felix shuffled out of the way. Hawk didn't get up. Instead, he swung himself around to face the cave wall and leaned forward slightly, bracing his good hand against it.

Unsure whether he ought to be worried about that agreeability or not, Felix summoned a small flame to his fingers and held it up as he moved back in to get a closer look at the wound. Light and shadow chased itself across Hawk's back, revealing a number of thin, silvery scars. Felix had seen them before and wondered at what had caused them, but he knew that he couldn't ask. Hawk wouldn't remember.

The arrow wound hadn’t been aggravated by their flight. The skin was still healing. Nothing had torn open. With extraordinary care, Felix ran a fingertip along the edge of it, feeling the temperature of Hawk's skin. It wasn't hot, and when he ran his finger along the center of Hawk's other shoulder blade, he could feel no difference. _Not infected then,_ he thought, tracing a line along the length of the wound.

"Does that hurt?" he asked softly.

Hawk shook his head. "No," he replied. "No more than before you started touching it."

Felix stared at the wound for a moment, absently chewing on his lower lip. This was as good an opportunity to heal him as he would likely get, at least for the foreseeable future. And Hawk was still. When he might convince him to quit moving around again, he didn't know, but he doubted that it would be in time to make a difference where his health was concerned.

_It's now or never_ , he told himself firmly. _You can do this. And even if you can't, you won't hurt him. You won't allow yourself to do that_. It wasn't much of a pep talk, but it was all he could give himself without possessing full knowledge of what his magical powers were capable of.

"I'd like to try healing this," he forced himself to say before he could change his mind. "If you'll let me."

Hawk didn't hesitate. He didn't even ask questions first. He just nodded, hummed a note of assent, and then said, "Go ahead."

Part of Felix wanted to snap at him for being an incautious idiot. The rest of him was touched that Hawk had such faith in him when even _he_ didn't know the extent of his own abilities. Deciding that irritation was better fuel for this endeavor than the strangely affectionate happiness that tried to slither through his veins into his chest, Felix reached within himself for his magic.

It was getting easier the more often he did it. Like a well that bubbled forth sparkling light, the magic answered his summons. He knew now how to shape it into fires of varying sizes and intensities. If need be, he could craft it into a long, jagged spear and throw it from his hand in an arc of lightning, though that was far trickier to construct than a ball of fire and he’d only done it twice. But mending torn flesh was still a difficult puzzle to solve.

He'd tried it on himself yesterday. While Hawk had finally capitulated to good sense and went inside to take a blighted nap, Felix had stayed outside, cut open his palm carefully—not too deep that he would incapacitate his hand should he be unable to close the wound himself but deep enough to bleed a little—with a small knife he'd found in the barn, and practiced summoning and applying the magic over and over until he was exhausted and his flesh had closed. Though, whether it had closed because of his spellcasting or because his body was just impatient for a rest and had unconsciously adapted the magic to accelerate the healing process so that he’d stop was as yet undetermined.

What he'd found in his somewhat sloppy experimentation was that it helped to imagine that he was applying a bandage to the wound. He visualized doing so now, and in response to the mental image, the magic coalesced under his palm as a thin sheen of green light. Once it was thick enough, he laid his hand against Hawk's shoulder and pressed downward, not with his hand but with his mind. The light sank into the marred flesh and Hawk flinched.

Felix froze. "Does that hurt?" 

"Hm?" There was a vague quality to the sound of the hum, before Hawk shook his head and cleared his throat. "No, it doesn't hurt. It's just..." He trailed off and Felix watched the fingers of the hand pressed against the wall of the cave tap against the stone. "I don't know how to describe it. Not like anything I've felt before."

That wasn't _wholly_ reassuring, but it was better than the alternative. Felix snorted. "You haven't felt a lot of things. Not that you can remember, anyway."

Hawk laughed a soft, breathless kind of chuckle. "You're right."

"Stop moving." It didn't really matter that he was moving, but snapping at him helped Felix relieve some of his anxiety. "This is delicate work."

"Yes, ser."

Breathing out heavily through his nose, Felix turned his attention back to the wound. There was green light glowing faintly beneath Hawk's skin, as if the magic was waiting for direction. Felix bit his lip in concentration. This was where it had gotten dicey and awkward with his own meager healing attempt yesterday.

Above the wound, his fingers twitched as if weaving invisible threads into a braid. The light pulsed faintly, slowly, and only because he was watching Hawk so closely did he notice the tiny little shiver that worked its way down his spine.

"Good or bad?" he asked immediately.

Hawk didn't need to ask what he meant. "Warm," he answered, though that didn't answer the question. He must have realized that, because he followed it up with a quiet, "Good. I think."

"Tell me if it starts to hurt," Felix instructed, then returned his focus to the task.

The deeper he sank into the magic, the more he felt. It was like his senses were extending with the flow of the magic or perhaps like the magic was an extension of his senses. Either way, he slowly became aware of subtle tears in Hawk's flesh. When he focused on them, so too did the magic, knitting the flesh together as it washed over the edges like a brilliant, glowing sea. And the further he sank into it, the more he became aware of a deeper hurt.

Had the arrow traveled deeper than they'd thought? He didn't know, but he followed it down until he found bone, and there it radiated out along the length of Hawk's shoulder blade. Felix expanded his senses, tracking it like a trail of footprints in the mud, but soon it was everywhere, running through the core of Hawk's bones. It was a hollow ache that throbbed in sparks of flaming hot pain and Felix, with only a dim understanding of what he was doing, had no idea how to quell it.

He tried, laying down a cool blanket of healing magic on one such spark and it flared, overpowering it. Hawk made a low sound of discomfort and Felix jerked back, with his magic, with his strangely augmented senses, and with his hand.

"Are you all right?"

Hawk's hand had curled into a fist against the wall and his shoulders were hunched. The patch of skin that had been marred with a healing gash and a fading bruise was pale now and whole, as if the arrow had never struck him. In that endeavor, at least, Felix had been successful.

"Hawk?" Felix asked after a moment, when Hawk hadn't responded.

A worrying silence filled the cave, but after a moment, Hawk nodded. "Yes," he said quietly. "I'm... It's fine."

It wasn't fine. Felix could see his fisted hand trembling slightly. "I'm sorry." So often, apologies seemed to stick in his throat, but this one came to his tongue readily. "I don't know what—"

"It's fine," Hawk interrupted, slowly straightening up. "It _was_."

He took a bracing kind of breath, then let his hand fall to his side and gingerly twisted around to face Felix. His expression was tight, pinched with discomfort, and pale. A faint sheen of sweat glinted in the firelight across his forehead. Quite unconsciously, Felix lifted a steadying hand to his arm, and when Hawk didn't pull away, gripped it.

"It felt a little like water. Warm water." Hawk licked his lips. Felix wondered if he was thirsty, then realized that it hardly mattered. There hadn't been time to gather supplies when they'd left the farm. "But then it, I don't know. It got too hot or maybe too cold." He frowned, then shook his head. "Then it started to hurt."

"Does it still hurt?"

Hawk nodded.

Felix chewed on the inside of his cheek as he gathered his thoughts. "I focused on your shoulder. But then, once it was healed, I could feel something else, worse than the arrow wound, so I tried to heal that too, but..."

But he hadn't been strong enough to do it. Or competent enough with healing magic. Felix cut himself off before he could consider the third possibility. As far as he was willing to believe, there was no third possibility. Whatever was wrong with Hawk was not so horrible that it defied magic. The fault lay with him, and all they needed to do was find a better healer. Or a stronger mage. 

The corner of Hawk's mouth twitched and he laid a hand over Felix's. "Thank you for trying." His mouth twitched again, a bit more obviously this time. "My shoulder feels fine."

Felix knew what he was doing. Hawk wasn't as sly as he thought he was. It was a distraction, but for a moment, he gave it to him without resistance. "I should think so. I did heal _that_."

Now he was almost smiling. "You did more than I could, Felix. That's enough."

So much for the distraction. Felix sighed. "How bad is it?"

"Not as bad as it was the morning after I got shot," Hawk replied, answering the question Felix had meant instead of the one he had asked.

That was a relief, anyway. Though whether the pain would intensify or dim as time passed remained to be seen. Rest and relaxation, Elora had prescribed that first morning. Felix didn't know if he could trust her now, but the measures she and her husband had gone to in order to keep Hawk alive had done the job.

Setting the flame in his hand to burning on the other side of the cave, Felix shifted around until he was sitting next to Hawk and made himself comfortable. The rock wall was uneven and cold against his back, but it wasn't intolerable and soon, he hoped, the fire would heat the cave to a comfortable degree. Kept alive by his magic instead of consuming fuel, it didn't give off any smoke and would continue to burn as long as he willed it to do so.

Once he was confident that he'd be able to sit still for a few hours, Felix grabbed a hold of Hawk's arm and tugged him sideways. "Lay down," he told him.

Hawk looked at him in surprise. "What?"

"Lay down," Felix repeated, then patted the top of his thighs. "Put your head here."

Eyeing him for a moment, Hawk eventually did as instructed, curling up on his side with his head pillowed in Felix's lap. Immediately, Felix ran his fingers through his hair, gently easing out the tangles. As soon as he could comb his fingers through without obstruction, he set to stroking Hawk's hair and massaging his scalp in long, slow movements of his hands. Hawk hummed a quiet sound of pleasure as Felix's fingers rubbed against his temples and shifted, almost nuzzling into the top of his thigh.

"Better?" Felix asked with a faint smile.

"Better," Hawk murmured quietly.

"Get some sleep, then. I'll wake you in a few hours."

Whether it simple exhaustion or the magic—figuratively speaking this time—of Felix's fingers, Hawk didn't raise any objection at the suggestion that he get rest first. He simply made a quiet sound of assent and closed his eyes. For his part, Felix continued stroking his hair and rubbing his head. It wouldn't cure whatever was wrong with him, he knew, but he hoped it would lull him to sleep.

And as it happened, it did.

* * *

They lost half a day's travel time to resting in the cave. Hawk wasn't happy when he woke up five hours later and saw how late it had gotten, but Felix was unrepentant. He'd needed the sleep. Hawk denied it, claimed that he could have gotten by on two hours at most, but he didn't conceal that he was in less pain than he'd been in before he’d gone to sleep. That simple fact argued Felix's side of the disagreement for him, and after a bland, unperturbed smile, he'd leaned sideways, blithely rested his head against Hawk's shoulder, and had fallen asleep.

Unsurprisingly, despite the conniption he'd had over the lost time, Hawk didn't wake him.

Felix roused himself a few hours later, long after noon had passed, and after stretching out cramped muscles, inquired after Hawk's health. A fierce glare and a challengingly arched eyebrow told him in no uncertain terms that he wasn't going to accept dissembling, and after scowling a little and grumbling under his breath, Hawk had admitted that he was a little stiff but otherwise capable of walking.

Traveling in the dark wasn't ideal, especially when they didn't know the terrain, but at the same time, it also provided them with some much needed cover. After a brief debate over the merits of continuing on versus staying in the cave for the night, moving on got the unanimous vote and they set off with the sun sinking toward the horizon. Without the pressing urgency of trying to leave a large group of likely hostile individuals behind, they didn't need to hurry and that allowed them to travel more safely than their hurried flight the previous night.

"Do you have any idea where we're going?" Felix asked quietly, sometime after the sun had set, careful to keep his voice low so that it wouldn't carry to any who might be hidden by the darkness.

Beside him, the shadow that was Hawk shifted in a way that Felix took to be him shaking his head. "North, I think."

"You think?"

"Unless I've gotten turned around," Hawk replied, sounding slightly resigned. "Then I suspect we're going south."

Felix had to ask himself if it really mattered. They were at a woeful disadvantage and whatever sense of comfort and purpose they'd gained during their stay at the elves' farm had vanished in the wake of being chased out into the wilderness. They didn't know where they were going. Aside from each other, they didn't know who to trust. It was possible that they could trust no one and every place they could go was filled with those hostile toward them and loyal to their mysterious adversary. Whether they went north or south or east or west hardly seemed important.

"Redcliffe's to the north, isn't it?" he asked after a considerable silence, the memory of Elora's description of the land around the farm surfacing after a while.

"So we were told," Hawk said evenly.

A suspicion began to form and Felix pressed his lips together tightly to hold his opinion in check. For the moment, anyway. Attempting to corral it back forever was a fool's errand and the only fool here was occasionally Hawk.

"If we're going to Redcliffe, we could be walking right into the hands of the people we just ran away from," he pointed out with deceptive mildness.

"Yes, that's possible," Hawk conceded. "But if it's a city and those men weren't sent from it after us, then we could lose ourselves in the crowd for a while. Rest. Regroup. Get better equipment and hear the news of the world. Try to figure this out in better conditions than we’ve been dealing with."

It made sense, Felix couldn't deny that. But it also sounded needlessly risky. _Though they wouldn't expect us to walk into their stronghold, if that's what it is_ , he thought after a moment's further reflection. _Most people probably aren't that bold. Or stupid._ And if they _were_ able to learn more of their surroundings and acquire better clothes and equipment, well, Redcliffe might turn out to be their salvation.

Felix wasn't feeling overly optimistic. Thus far, life hadn't been particularly kind to them. Unless that kindness was demonstrated by the fact that neither one of them was doing this alone. Hawk couldn't see him and he couldn't truly see Hawk either, but Felix still cast a contemplative look his way.

Was there a better companion than a handsome man who clearly cared for him? And who, he had to grudgingly admit, he obviously cared for in return? Because there were real feelings involved here. Felix's concern for Hawk's well-being had nothing to do with the possibility that his death would leave him alone in the world and everything to do with the fact that he didn't want anything to happen to him that would take him away from him.

There in the beginning, Felix had thought them simply acquaintances. Friends at the utmost. Now, with memories of yesterday's lust and this morning's worry preying on his mind, he had to concede that perhaps it was far more complicated than that.

_Or is it complicated?_ Unconsciously, he squinted at Hawk's profile, as if a simple narrowing of his eyes would pierce both darkness and whatever veil had been pulled down between him and his memories. _Perhaps it's simply_ more _and it's me that's needlessly making it complicated._ Instinct told him that nothing was ever simple. But instinct also told him that he wanted Hawk rather desperately.

"What is it?" Hawk's quiet voice pulled him from his reverie.

"What?" Had he realized that Felix was staring? Surely not. It was too dark.

"You're paying more attention to me than to what you're doing," Hawk responded mildly, then sighed. "I'm _fine_ , Felix. The pain hasn't returned."

It took no internal debate at all to let Hawk continue on under the mistaken notion that he'd been staring at him searching for a sign of pain rather than in dawning understanding of the conflicting jumble of feelings still tangled up inside himself. "Would you tell me if it had?" he said immediately, critically.

"If it means you'll stop nagging at me like an overprotective hen, then yes, I would."

Felix drew himself up with a huff. "I'm not a _hen._ "

He couldn't see Hawk smiling, but he could hear the grin in his voice as clearly as if the light shone upon him. "Yet you ruffle just as easily."

"No one thinks you're funny," Felix muttered stiffly.

Hawk barked a soft laugh. "I do."

"You hardly count."

Although he didn't respond, Felix knew that Hawk was laughing at him. Perhaps not out loud, but certainly he was doing it internally. He tried to punish him with indifferent silence, but that lasted only a few minutes before he cracked under the weight of his inability to keep his mouth shut.

"It isn't a bad idea," he offered slowly, almost warily.

"What isn't?" Hawk sounded surprised. "Ruffling your feathers?"

" _Redcliffe_ ," Felix ground out through clenched teeth. "I mean, there's a possibility that it's suicidally stupid." He shrugged with feigned carelessness. "But it's probably just as likely to be a brilliant idea. My wager's on the former, but I'm willing to take the gamble if you are. I don't know what other choice we have."

Hawk’s quiet chuckle filtered out of the dark beside him. A moment later, that darkness shifted, coming nearer, and Felix felt a hand close gently around his arm and give a faint squeeze. He didn’t feel the least bit better about the whole miserable situation. And his stomach certainly didn’t get a weird, quavery sort of lurch there for a moment at the contact, either.

“That’s if we’re even going in the right direction,” Hawk said after his chuckling had faded. His voice remained light, however, as if he wasn’t truly disturbed by any part of their somewhat blind trek through the night. Felix had an inkling that he was affecting the humor for his sake. It wasn’t necessary, Felix’s pessimism had gained almost unstoppable momentum by now, but the attempt was appreciated. “We might never reach Redcliffe to have to worry about it.”

* * *

As luck would have it, they did reach Redcliffe. It was quite late by then. The moon had risen and was shining above them, a thin sliver of silver in a broad expanse of black, when they found themselves walking on tightly packed cobbles. It was a far better road than anything they’d encountered previously and after making their way warily through a narrow pass between two hills, they saw their destination spread out before them.

The warm, golden glow of candles and torches lit up the night better than the moon and stars did, though thanks to the wide stretch of water nearby, the light from the sky was magnified. Dark black shapes rose in the distance— _the famed red cliffs, no doubt_ , Felix thought—and atop one of them was a shadow so strange and hulking that it took him a long time to realize that it was a windmill. The dull rush of a waterfall filled the air, though it wasn’t so loud that Felix had to raise his voice to speak or had difficulty hearing other sounds.

“Do you think this is it?” he asked quietly, stepping closer to Hawk. “Redcliffe?”

Hawk, Maker bless him, didn’t point out that he had just as much insight into their location as Felix did. “The elves didn’t mention anywhere else within a day’s walk. It has to be.”

Felix eyed it again. “It’s a bit smaller than I was expecting.” After a moment’s further consideration, he added critically, “And more rustic.”

A soft snort met that criticism. “We’re in the middle of the wilderness. What did you expect? Marble archways and towers?”

Making a show of more disgruntled disappointment than he actually felt, Felix crossed his arms over his chest. “It would’ve been nice. I wanted a bath.” He turned his head so that he could see Hawk a bit better. “You could use one, too.”

Hawk’s teeth flashed white in the dark as he grinned. “I can throw you in the river, if you’d like.”

The glare he leveled at him was as fierce as he was capable of producing. “Try it and I’ll set you on fire.”

Hawk was still smiling at him, but he lapsed into silence without fighting Felix for the last word. Not quite ready to brave the little... _village_ , Felix thought uncharitably, yet, he was content to stand there looking at it while Hawk plumbed his thoughts for whatever it was that he was evidently searching for. 

Since their journey had begun, he’d come to learn that Hawk enjoyed solving puzzles like this. Felix was no slouch in the strategic arena, he was perfectly capable of coming up with a plan of attack and he knew it, but he didn’t mind ceding that role to his companion. Too much plotting and attempting to divine all the possible outcomes of an action got boring rather quickly. Of the two of them, Hawk was clearly the patient one on that front.

“We can’t conceal our weapons,” Hawk murmured thoughtfully, startling Felix out of his musings. “But perhaps we ought to wear our hoods up.”

“That won’t look suspicious,” Felix countered dryly. “Two men sneaking into the place under the cover of night, faces concealed. Nothing remotely remarkable about that at all.”

“It’s cold and we’re travelers,” Hawk pointed out. “Travelers wear their hoods up when it’s cold. That isn’t unusual.”

Fair points. Felix nodded, after taking a moment to examine them and finding nothing inherently wrong about Hawk’s thinking.

“You should also stay behind me, keep your hood up, and let me doing the talking,” Hawk continued.

That wasn’t what he’d been expecting. And if he thought about it too hard, which of course he did, it sounded vaguely insulting, too. “What? Why?”

“That bandit.” Hawk didn’t need to say which one he meant. “He mentioned your accent. Called it interesting and asked where you were from, do you remember?”

Honestly, he’d forgotten all about it. The conversation they’d had with the man prior to his trying to kill them had been overshadowed by the fight and Hawk’s subsequent injury. How Hawk had remembered it, through delirium and the pain that followed his wound, Felix couldn’t begin to figure out.

“Now that you’ve reminded me of it, yes,” he answered honestly, ignoring the impulse to put on airs in the interest of expediently hashing out their next move. “I don’t see how it matters what some unwashed—”

Hawk sighed, like Felix was being stupid on purpose. “You stand out. I didn’t realize there was anything unusual about the way you speak, but that man obviously did. And if he thought it was strange, then it’s likely others will as well. And you’re—The way you look is...” Felix’s eyebrows rose as Hawk spoke, and perhaps some ray of light illuminated enough of his expression for Hawk to see it, because he started stumbling there at the end and fell silent before he could finish his thought.

“The way I look is what?” Felix prompted calmly, voice neutral.

“You’re...” Hawk broke off with a low noise of frustration.

It was entertaining to watch him squirm, now that he realized that he’d stuck his foot in it. Felix could have relented, but in the interest of not depriving himself of entertainment, he chose to keep staring at him. Under his scrutiny, Hawk ran a hand back through his hair; the gesture one that Felix was beginning to recognize as an indication of agitation.

“Stunning,” Hawk said after a moment, and Felix, not expecting that at all, had to fight with himself not to let his jaw drop. “Even if you didn’t say anything, people would notice you in a crowd. Worse, they would remember you. And we don’t want to be memorable. We want to be as nondescript as possible so that no one thinks to say anything about us to anyone.” 

That was all very logical and important. This was why he let Hawk do the planning if he wasn’t feeling strongly about any of the available options. But logic and clever contingency planning wasn’t _as_ important as hearing him say that he thought he was _stunning_. Not handsome. Not good-looking or attractive. Stunning. That was an evocative word and Felix wasn’t going to let him get away with voicing without saying _something_ about it.

“So,” he drawled, cocking one eyebrow. “You think I’m stunning, do you?”

Hawk didn’t have the decency to look embarrassed or shy about his assessment. He just sighed heavily. “Don’t let it go to your head. And try to focus on the matter at hand.”

“That _is_ the matter at hand.” Not only did he enjoy compliments, but he was honestly curious what it was about him that Hawk found so captivating. “What is it about me that makes you say that?”

“Everything,” Hawk answered, though his voice was far too matter-of-fact for Felix’s taste. In the spirit of romance and seduction, it should have been breathy and adoring. “Your skin’s darker than that of anyone I’ve seen. Your hair’s styled differently. The clothes you’ve been wearing aren’t anything like mine or the people we’ve met. Even your facial hair is—”

Felix frowned at him, cutting him off. “You’re aware that I wasn’t asking for an inventory, yes?”

“If you want to be flattered, wait until we’ve found a place to stay for the night and have time for it,” Hawk returned, sounding faintly exasperated.

That sounded promising. “Do you mean that?” The hopefulness in his voice was only partially feigned.

“If I say yes, will you please focus?”

“Possibly.”

Either that wasn’t the answer Hawk was looking for or he’d just tired of humoring him. “Just don’t do anything to draw anyone’s attention.”

Like he was asking for the impossible, Felix heaved a sigh. “Fine, fine. No one will even know that I’m there.”

A stray bit of light glinted in the whites of Hawk’s eyes as he glanced askance at him, unconvinced. “Sure they won’t.”

But Felix was true to his word. When they finally moved into the village proper, he kept his hood up and his mouth shut. He walked in step next to Hawk, his staff strapped as non-threateningly as possible across his back and his posture loose and easy. Although he couldn’t be sure how well he pulled it off, he hoped that the way he carried himself conveyed the image of an ordinary man with nothing to hide.

There wasn’t much activity in the village at this hour. The few villagers they passed on their way through either paid them no mind at all or gave them only the most cursory of glances. It wasn’t a terribly large place; from a distance, the scattering of lights made it appear larger than it actually was. The buildings weren’t clustered together in a thick swath along the river like he’d thought. Rather, they dotted the land here and there in a community that wasn’t densely packed but sprawling.

Somewhere near the center of it, or as close to a center as the place got, they found what they were looking for: a tavern. It was as rustic as the rest of the buildings, made of stone and wood, but it had walls and a roof and, presumably, food and a place to sleep. After that abandoned, pest-ridden hut they’d spent an unfortunate night in, Felix couldn’t in good faith complain about the possible conditions of the accommodations that awaited them. He wanted to, and had he not agreed to keep the chatter to a minimum, he probably would have, good faith be damned.

“It’s a bird and a lantern,” he muttered critically, eyeing the metal-worked bird from which hung a lit lantern. “What kind of sign is this?”

“As long as the beds are dry and the food’s edible, I don’t care,” Hawk returned, nudging him out of the way and opening the door.

The inside was no more impressive than the outside, though by this point, Felix wasn’t expecting miracles. Exposed beams held up the ceiling, tables and chairs were scattered around the main floor, and a fire blazed in the hearth. It was busy, there were people in all corners, but not crowded. A quick glance around revealed at least two tables that weren’t occupied and a smattering of empty chairs throughout the establishment.

As per their agreement, Felix hung back with a bored, tired air as Hawk went to speak with the barkeeper. Keeping his eyes half-lidded, he took another casually disinterested look around the place. A few heads had turned when they walked in, but no one was still staring at them or sneaking furtive glances in their direction and he couldn’t see any whispering conversations happening anywhere.

Either these people saw so many travelers that they weren’t especially curious to see more or they were all pretending not to be interested so they wouldn’t chase them away. Felix hoped it was the former, if for no other reason than that he was getting really tired of living in a constant state of paranoia.

“Here.” Hawk reappeared at his side, pushing a mug of something warm and spicy into his hand before he’d quite realized that he was done talking to the barkeeper. “I got us a room and ordered some dinner. The serving girl will bring it round in a few minutes.”

They sat down at a table along the wall, close enough to the other patrons to overhear their conversations yet far enough out of the way that they wouldn’t attract undue attention. Felix tried the drink in the mug and discovered that it was some kind of spiced cider. It wasn’t as bad as he thought it was going to be and settled in to enjoy it feeling slightly less pessimistic than he had a moment ago.

The stew wasn’t terrible either. It wasn’t great—Felix thought it bland and unnecessarily heavy—but it filled his stomach and it looked to be made of recognizable ingredients. He and Hawk made idle conversation as they ate, speaking of nothing in particular in an effort to appear normal as they eavesdropped on the people around them. Unfortunately, they didn’t learn anything of note.

Farmer Balon’s crops weren’t doing so well and someone with the uninspired name of One-Eyed Jimmy had lost his ram again, but no one mentioned anything that sounded remotely relevant to their circumstances. Unless rams happened to be code for _a mage and a warrior_ and One-Eyed Jimmy was actually the name of someone’s army, it appeared that all in Redcliffe was relatively uneventful and dreadfully dull.

Once they’d finished eating and had polished off a second mug of cider, Hawk and Felix retired to their room. It wasn’t as bad as Felix had been expecting, but it was far from palatial. It was a small room; large enough for a bed, a chest, and a small table next to the side of the bed upon which sat a candle. There was also a window, but it looked out into a blank wall of darkness that Felix could only assume was the face of the cliff rising behind the tavern.

Felix lit the candle with a wave of his hand, then summoned a ball of fire to his fingertips to chase back the thick shadows that lingered in the corners of the room.

“Check the bed for vermin, would you?” he asked Hawk, loitering near the foot of it.

Hawk sighed. “Are we going to go through this every time we sleep somewhere?" 

Felix simply stared at him. “Take me somewhere nice and we won’t have to.”

Unsurprisingly, that got an eye roll. But Hawk _did_ pull the blankets back and check out the mattress. He even lifted it up to look underneath it, and once he’d done that, he set it back down and flapped out each blanket individually. Watching him, Felix couldn’t deny the fondness that rushed through him in a wave of warmth. Ridiculous though the request had been, Hawk had still done it, for no other reason that that he’d asked of it of him.

With the bed pronounced vermin-free, Felix dispelled the fireball and they divested themselves of their packs, cloaks and, with a sigh of relief on Felix’s part, their boots. He wanted nothing more than to crawl beneath the questionable blankets and go to sleep, but all he did was sit there on the edge of the bed and regard Hawk.

“Should we keep watch, do you think?”

Hawk gave it some thought, his lips thinning into a thoughtful line, but after a moment, he shook his head. Then he stood, dragged the chest away from the foot of the bed, and shoved it up against the door.

“It won’t keep out anyone who wants in any more than the lock will,” he said, turning back to Felix. “But it’ll give us enough of a warning that we won’t be caught unaware.”

“Well then,” Felix said after a moment, patting the mattress and giving Hawk an admittedly exaggerated sultry smile. “Come to bed.”

Laughing, Hawk stepped forward, smoothing shucking off his shirt. It wasn’t until his hands dropped to his trousers and he began unlacing them that Felix realized he might not have recognized the joke. Not that Felix minded. If Hawk wanted to fuck, he’d be hard-pressed to come up with a reason why they shouldn’t. Especially now that he was bare-chested and the candle flame was practically licking his skin with golden shafts of light.

Arousal shot through him like wildfire as Hawk got closer and pushed his trousers down off his hips. The rather utilitarian smallclothes he wore provided coverage, but they were fitted well enough that they didn’t leave much to the imagination. Swallowing, his throat feeling suddenly parched, Felix unclasped the buckles that held his more complicated shirt closed and slipped it off. He was gratified to see Hawk’s gaze drop and slide appreciatively over his chest, though when he rose to take his own trousers off, he could only watch in puzzlement as Hawk shifted the trajectory of his path and went to the head of the bed to pull the blankets back.

He was further confused when, instead of sweeping him into his arms and pulling him flush to his nearly naked body, Hawk simply got into the bed. It was as he was pulling the blankets to his shoulders that Felix realized _he’d_ been the one to misread the signals. Hawk hadn’t been stripping with amorous purpose. He’d been getting ready for bed.

Disappointed and slightly embarrassed, though thank the Maker he hadn’t said anything to give the direction of his thoughts away, Felix finished undressing and got into bed, extinguishing the candle with a gesture. Hawk seemed utterly oblivious to all of it as he shifted around, trying to make himself comfortable. 

Stretching out on his back, the blankets pulled up to his throat in a bid to get warm, Felix turned his head to look in Hawk’s direction. He was lying on his side facing Felix, though in the darkness it was difficult to tell if he had his eyes closed already or not.

“Are you asleep?” he asked, keeping his voice quiet so Hawk could ignore him if he wanted to do so.

“Not yet,” Hawk murmured, shifting a bit closer. Felix could feel the warm puff of his breath against his ear as he continued. “Does something trouble you?”

_Yes_ , Felix thought with mild frustration. _You_. Aloud, he settled for making a noncommittal grunt. “Just wondering what we’re going to do tomorrow.”

“Eat breakfast, look around town, strike up a few conversations, purchase some supplies,” Hawk rattled off the list of tasks easily, like he’d taken the trouble to write it all down beforehand.

“And after that?” Felix pressed. “Are we staying or continuing on?”

“Do you have a preference?”

Felix shook his head. “I’m tired of walking, but I can’t claim to be comfortable here either. I’d prefer we only stay as long as we have to.”

“Day after tomorrow?” Hawk offered. “Provided that we aren’t chased out before then, anyway.”

The ever present sense of urgency didn’t grow in response to Hawk’s proposal. Whether his instincts were accurate or not, Felix couldn’t find a legitimate reason to argue against a second night at the tavern.

“That sounds good,” he replied.

“All right, then,” Hawk responded, still as calmly as before.

It was as if he didn’t notice the awkwardness between them. Or maybe Felix was the only one feeling it, like the air was heavy and tense with the weight of things left unsaid and actions undone. It made him anxious, restless with the recession of his arousal. They needed to talk about this thing between them, but he didn’t know how to start the conversation and Hawk was either pretending it didn’t exist or wasn’t concerned. Felix didn’t know how to take it.

“Goodnight, Felix,” Hawk murmured, curling inward slightly, his hand moving under the blanket to rest lightly atop Felix’s abdomen.

Hawk’s touch on his bare skin made it prickle and a rekindled flicker of desire sparked inside his gut.

“Hawk,” Felix blurted out before he could stop himself. And then it was too late to take it back.

“Hm?” Hawk asked, lifting his head off the pillow. “What is it?”

“I...” He didn’t know where to go with it. _I want you? I want to talk about what’s going on with us? I want you to stop pretending like nothing happened yesterday?_ All of it sounded weak and needy and Felix _knew_ that they had more important concerns. But knowing that didn’t diminish how badly he wanted to feel Hawk’s hands on him.

“Felix?” Hawk levered himself up onto his elbow so that he could lean closer, as if by peering at Felix’s face hard enough, he could divine his thoughts. “What’s wrong?”

He couldn’t really see him, but he could imagine the expression he was wearing: furrowed brow, concerned frown, and eyes squinted just far enough that the little lines near the corners were visible. Felix opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head. “Never mind,” he muttered, turning his head away. “Go to sleep.”

Hawk’s hand left its place on his abdomen, emerged from the blankets with a little gust of air, and cupped the distant side of his jaw with only minimal blind fumbling. He was gentle about applying pressure to turn his face back toward him, though why he bothered when they couldn’t see each other properly was beyond Felix. 

“Hey,” Hawk said, leaning so close the tip of his nose brushed up against Felix’s. “Talk to me.”

And suddenly, he just couldn’t do it anymore.

With a quiet hiss, Felix caught him by the back of the head, curled his fingers into his hair, and pulled him down. It was too dark and Felix was feeling too impatiently reckless to try to aim properly; he ended up grazing Hawk’s cheek with his mouth. Someone—he wasn’t sure if it was him or Hawk or both of them—made an odd growling sound and then Hawk’s mouth was pressing insistently against his own.

There were no sweet, gentle kisses. Feeling inexplicably like he’d been waiting for this forever, Felix parted Hawk’s lips like his sole purpose in life was to plunder the inside of his mouth. And Hawk let him, met his tongue with his own and fed a low, needful sound into the kiss that Felix practically devoured. His fingers knotted in Hawk’s hair, tugging, and whether Hawk understood the nonverbal demand or simply had the same idea, he rolled over on top of him.

Felix got his other arm around him, his hand on his back, nails digging into his shoulder as if that alone would be enough to keep him there should he decide to move. Because now that he had him, he didn’t want to let him go. Hawk’s skin was warm where they were pressed together and Felix arched his back so that he could get closer to him.

Abruptly, Hawk’s mouth was gone from his. He sucked in a deep lungful of air, not realizing how sorely in need of it he was until he was no longer distracted by the taste of Hawk on his tongue.

“Felix,” Hawk was gasping between breaths. “I—”

“ _No_ ,” Felix growled. “I want you, and by the Maker, I will have you.”

Hawk groaned, whatever undoubtedly noble protest he was going to make dying before it truly got started. Just to be on the safe side, Felix rolled his hips upward, pressing his hardening cock into Hawk’s. It worked better than he could’ve hoped. Hawk lunged forward with a guttural sound, capturing Felix’s mouth and all but stealing his breath with the ferocity with which he kissed him.

He could feel Hawk’s cock against his pelvis, hard and heavy and barred from him by two slips of cloth that _really_ needed to go. Rocking his hips again so that they rubbed together in the most delicious of ways, Felix dragged his hand down Hawk’s back, scratching his skin hard enough to make Hawk moan. Before he had the chance to react, Felix broke away from his mouth.

“Get rid of these,” he demanded breathlessly, yanking so hard on the strap of Hawk’s smallclothes that it was a wonder he didn’t tear it.

Hawk pushed himself up without protest, getting out from between Felix’s legs to fumble at the garment and shove it down. Felix did the same, wriggling out of his and kicking them toward the foot of the bed. Then Hawk was back on top of him, all hot skin and hard muscle, and Felix’s hand was closing around both their cocks, pressing them together and stroking up along the shafts with his palm. Hawk made a low sound of pleasure at the touch. Felix found himself echoing it as his hips jerked of their own volition, fucking in his hand and against Hawk.

After a moment, Hawk’s hand joined his and together, hands overlapping, they established a rhythm that had them panting in seconds. Hawk’s hips thrust against him and Felix, helpless to resist the demands of his body, rocked into him.

Hawk came first, Felix’s teeth at his throat and Felix’s name on his lips. His hips slowed, but his hand didn’t, and the added slickness as they smeared his come over their skin quickly sent Felix over the edge. Hawk slumped down on top of him, Felix spreading his legs wider to make room for him, and for a long time, they laid there like that, sweat cooling on their skin, the sound of their harsh breaths fading to silence as their breathing slowed.

Whether it was exhaustion from the day’s events, the aftermath of his orgasm, or the frenzy with which they’d fucked, Felix felt almost delirious as he came back to himself. One hand was moving in aimless, lazy caresses along the length and breadth of Hawk’s back and the other was still caught in his hair. Hawk himself was a boneless sprawl on top of him, his breath puffing softly across the skin of Felix’s shoulder.

“That was...”

“...Nice,” Hawk murmured, sounding almost drunk.

“Nice?” Felix tried for indignation, but he was too relaxed to effectively convey feigned hurt feelings.

“Mmm.” For a moment, Hawk’s affirmative hum was the only answer he got. Then, as Felix was contemplating whether it was worth the effort to aim a weak kick at his shin, he added drowsily, “I’d like to do it again.”

“Would you now?” Felix teased, pleased.

“Slower,” Hawk said. “I want to take my time.”

Well, now he was curious. “Take your time doing what?”

“ _Everything_ ,” he breathed, seeming to savor the shape of the word on his tongue.

Felix was spent, but the faintest ember of lust sparked briefly at that word. “We might have to rest up first,” he said lightly, trying to ignore it.

“Want to see you next time, too,” Hawk murmured, then turned his head and _nuzzled_ into the side of Felix’s neck. His unshaven cheek ticked Felix’s oversensitive skin, causing him to shiver.

He tried to play it off by tipping his head to the side. “It sounds like you’ve got a list.”

“I do,” Hawk returned, edging closer and closer to sleep with every passing second. His voice was getting lighter and more slurred. “Spent long enough wanting you.”

Felix too was tired. He was fighting off the edges of sleep simply because he didn’t want to wake in the morning and discover that Hawk regretted what they’d done. If he wasn’t, he might have focused a little more on that statement. He might have poked at it, urged Hawk to speak more on the subject while he hovered between consciousness and unconsciousness. But though something about it niggled in his mind, like an itch that needed scratched, Felix didn’t focus on it. He smiled and scratched at Hawk’s scalp instead.

“Of course you did. I’m very desirable.”

Hawk hummed a note of agreement, before falling silent. Felix’s eyes were growing heavier and he had just closed them when Hawk murmured faintly, “Mine.”

And Felix, mind clouded with rapidly approaching sleep and sated satisfaction, smiled. Just before he slipped away, one thought flitted like quicksilver through his mind. _It’s about damn time._


	7. Chapter 7

Felix woke to gentle sunlight and the hot press of another body laying half on top of him. Cracking open an eye, he saw Hawk's arm curled around his chest. He could feel the warmth of his breath against the side of his neck, where Hawk had tucked his face at some point in the night, and the firmness of his cock against his hip. It hadn't been a dream then, he realized with considerable pleasure, and Hawk hadn't woken in the night and scrabbled away from him. Unless he hadn't woken at all yet and would back away with murmurs of regret and apology whenever he finally did so.

Wrinkling his nose at the prospect, Felix decided that he wasn't going to trouble himself with it until such an unfortunate eventuality occurred. Better to pretend that all was well. If he believed in it hard enough, perhaps the world would align with his perspective. He _was_ a mage, after all, and what was magic but the alteration of the world to suit his desires?

At the moment, his desires were rather base and straightforward. In an effort to satisfy them, he leisurely ran his hand down along Hawk's back, enjoying the interplay between muscle and bone beneath his palm. When he reached the small of his back, he kept going, sliding his hand down over the swell of his ass and cupping the firm flesh. They hadn't had the opportunity to explore each other's bodies last night, and since they didn't appear to be in danger of fleeing the tavern for their lives—at least not at present; as their last night at the elves' farm had proven, that could always change before either of them knew it—he thought it prudent to take advantage of the chance to do so now.

As his fingers flexed and kneaded at the muscle, Hawk murmured a soft sigh of pleasure into his neck and shifted, arching against the side of his body. Mouth curving into a smile, Felix let his hand drift sideways until his forefinger slid between the cheeks of his ass. It wasn't very subtle, but Felix wasn't in a subtle mood and he wanted Hawk to wake so that he knew where they stood more than he wanted to remain blissfully ignorant for a few more minutes.

It worked like a charm. Right about when he felt smooth skin give way to a slight pucker, Hawk came awake with a low moan, his arm tightening reflexively over Felix's chest as his hips moved in a slow, languorous roll against his thigh.

"What are you doing?" Hawk's voice was raspy with sleep and arousal but the question did not, unfortunately, immediately make obvious his thoughts on their current circumstances.

"Having my way with you," he returned cheerfully, determined to approach this positively.

Either the plan worked or he'd never had to worry about it in the first place. Hawk pressed his pelvis against Felix's thigh, rocking against him in short, shallow movements as he brushed a series of kisses along his throat. "And what if I want to have my way with you?"

Sweet relief, and something warmer, rushed through him like sparkling sunlight and Felix uttered a delighted laugh. "Wake up earlier. I've won this round."

Chuckling, Hawk's lips parted and he bit gently at Felix's skin. "So you did." The tip of his tongue licked the spot he'd just bitten. "How will you have me, then?"

That simple question had arousal flaring so hotly inside him that for a moment, he could barely breathe. "In ways I'm currently ill-equipped to take you."

Hawk's hand swept down his chest and curled, without preamble, around his erection. "You feel perfectly well-equipped to me."

Felix's hips jerked forward of their own accord, thrusting himself further into the circle of Hawk's fingers. "I meant oil, you daft man. Or something slick." In an effort to make his intentions clear, he rubbed the pad of his forefinger around the rim of Hawk's hole. "I can't fuck you dry, Hawk."

The way that the touch had him rubbing against his thigh, Felix wondered if Hawk had enough presence of mind to care about his own comfort. Then again, even when he wasn't dancing around the possibility of inevitable throes of passion, he didn't see to himself. Felix wasn't sure why he expected this to be any different.

A hiss escaped his mouth as, without warning, Hawk let him go and reached around behind himself to catch Felix's wrist. The hiss turned into a disapproving grumble as he pulled his hand away from his ass.

"This is the exact opposite of having you," he growled, disgruntled.

Hawk lifted his head, smirking in a way that was far too triumphant for Felix's thwarted libido. "Perhaps you ought to prepare better in the future. Since you're so _ill-equipped_ , I suppose that I'll have you after all."

"You aren't any more prepared than..." Felix's grumbling retort broke off as Hawk lifted himself away from him and slid downward. By the time he pressed his lips to Felix's hip, he realized what he was about. "Oh."

Low in his throat, Hawk chuckled. " _Oh_ indeed," he murmured, insinuating himself between Felix's legs. "Would you rather I waited until we purchase some oil?"

The damn man was teasing him. He _sounded_ serious, like he was genuinely considering such a thing, but his lips were brushing the tip of Felix's cock as he said it. Reaching down to catch a handful of Hawk's disheveled hair, he twined his fingers around some of the most unruly curly strands and tugged his head forward in a silent demand.

Laughing, Hawk moved with the motion, parting his lips so it felt briefly like he was kissing the spot where they met his skin. But he wasn't. His warm, wet tongue slid over the head of Felix's cock, making him groan softly and take a firmer grip on Hawk's hair. 

"Felix," Hawk said softly, ceasing his licking.

Prying open his eyes—when had he closed them?—Felix looked down at him. "What?" His voice was low, a little hoarse with the desire for more pleasure, but he could hear a faint note of concern in it too. "Is something wrong?"

Something passed across Hawk's face, though the position they were in prevented Felix from seeing it properly so that he could identify it. Immediately, he began loosening his hold on his hair, thinking that he was changing his mind. "If—" he began, only for Hawk to interrupt him.

"I need you tell me what pleases you," Hawk said. Because he hadn't moved away, his lips formed the words against Felix's skin. "I..." His gaze slid sideways away from Felix's face and his cheeks reddened. "I'm sorry, I don't remember how to do this."

Here was the man who, while injured, had boldly spoken filthy things in his ear and gotten him off by rutting against him in the middle of a _barn_ , suddenly shy about not knowing how to properly pleasure him with his mouth. Felix would have laughed at the absurdity of it, but whatever mirth he might have felt was smothered by such an overwhelming swell of affection that he almost thought he would burst from it.

"Neither do I," Felix reminded him after it had faded enough to allow him to get his throat working. With his free hand, he brushed a few wayward curls off of Hawk's forehead. "We'll learn together, yes? It will be like the first time all over again."

Hawk's eyes found his, the shyness melting away to something that looked an awfully lot like confidence. "Perhaps we're fortunate, then."

Felix arched an eyebrow. "How do you mean?"

So slowly that it made Felix's toes start to curl, Hawk licked up his cock from root to tip. When he reached the top, he let his tongue linger for a moment, as though savoring the taste of him. By the time he inched back to speak, Felix was flushed with impatience. "Who else gets to learn their lover a second time?"

His heart was pounding so hard it was amazing that he heard him over the thud of it. He wanted to say something profound in return, something as meaningful as Hawk calling him his lover, but all he managed to do was utter Hawk's name in a wholly undignified whine.

"Guide me," Hawk responded, smiling. Then he put his lips to Felix's cock and carefully took the head into his mouth.

It was a little bit trial and error and a lot of harsh, panting breaths and bitten-off pleas for more. Hawk took his time, as if he wanted to learn not just what made Felix writhe and cry out, but also what every inch of his skin tasted like. He licked and sucked at Felix's cock until his grip was so tight on his hair that Felix was half-afraid he was going to accidently tear it out. But Hawk never complained, only offered hums that made Felix's breath catch in his throat and once, a moan that vibrated straight up his shaft and forced a gasping sob from his throat.

By the time Hawk tried taking the full length of him into his mouth, Felix's control slipped and his hips thrust up, pushing his cock as deep as it would go. Hawk made a rough noise, like a stifled cough, and shoved his hips back down. Before he could voice an apology, or at least try to make a noise that sounded apologetic, Hawk was back at his task with renewed determination, one hand wrapped around the base of his cock to provide friction to what he couldn't fit into his mouth.

After a while, he worked out a rhythm between the bobs of his head and the motions of his hand. Felix didn't know if this was how they used to do it or not, if Hawk was falling back into old patterns by muscle memory or if he was discovering a new way to touch him. Either way, it was working for him. The tension was building in his body, the pleasure gathering in his groin and his balls drawing tight against his skin.

But then Felix got too close to orgasm and his patience snapped like a too taut bowstring. Pulling Hawk’s head down sharply by his hair, Felix sheathed himself in the wet heat of his mouth and came with a relieved moan. Pleasure whited out his mind, made him insensible, and it was only when he felt the tug against his hands that he realized he still had Hawk by the hair. He let him go with a soft curse and an apology, snatching his hands away like he’d suddenly been burned.

Hawk lifted himself off of his cock, his face flushed red from exertion and his struggle to breathe. His lips were red and swollen, spit-slick, and he licked at them absently as he sat back.

“I’m sorry,” Felix said again. “I didn’t mean to—”

Hawk shook his head. “It’s fine,” he said, his voice a harsh rasp. Felix knew that he shouldn’t have found it arousing, but knowing that it was his cock in Hawk’s mouth that had caused the roughness in it prompted a faint thread of arousal to curl gently in his gut. “You just surprised me.”

Whatever courtesy might have to say about Felix’s lack of manners, a glance downward revealed proof that Hawk wasn’t saying it was fine just to put him at ease. His cock was still hard, jutting up from between his legs as he sat there on his heels, the tip red and glistening with a generous drop of liquid. If he was bothered by such rough treatment, Felix reasoned, surely he wouldn’t be quite so aroused.

Felix beckoned him to move up from where he was sitting and Hawk complied, stretching out along the length of his body, his head on the pillow and his mouth close enough to Felix’s shoulder to kiss it. Which Hawk did, languorously.

“I truly intended to warn you,” Felix murmured apologetically, sliding his palm across Hawk’s jaw and tilting his face up to kiss him.

He could taste himself on Hawk’s tongue, a faint tang of bitterness that he didn’t find even a little off-putting. Hawk wasn’t shy about kissing him, though he moved his mouth more slowly against Felix’s than he had in the past. It took mere seconds to realize that it was likely because his jaw was sore, and once he’d made the connection, Felix gentled the kiss and rubbed his fingertips in soothing little circles along the overtaxed muscle.

Hawk hummed softly, gave him one last parting press of lips, then eased back slightly. “You didn’t hurt me, Felix. Think no more of it.”

A smile flickered across Felix’s mouth as he looked at him, growing slightly more confident in this—in _them_ —as Hawk remained where he was, pressed against him, looking for all the world as if he had nowhere else he’d rather be.

“I’m glad,” he said softly, still rubbing his jaw. “I rather enjoyed that, you know. I’d hate to have turned you off of it.”

A low rumble of laughter echoed in Hawk’s throat. “No chance of _that_ happening.”

The tension that had been creeping through him melted away. After a moment, Felix gave off massaging his face and swept his hand down his side. Hawk’s cock was pressing insistently into his hip, but Hawk was relatively still, seemingly content to simply bask in the morning beside him. Sweet as that admittedly was, Felix himself wasn’t solely content with that and took him in hand.

“Let me take care of this for you,” he said, rolling onto his side so that he could get his mouth on Hawk’s throat.

“We can’t stay in bed forever,” Hawk protested weakly, his body belying his words as his neck arched back, exposing his skin to Felix’s lips, and his hips rocked into the circle of his fist. “We need to explore the town.”

“Yes, yes,” Felix muttered, pulling back from his throat long enough to offer the assurance. “I’ll just speed this up then, shall I?”

Without waiting for Hawk to weigh in on the matter, Felix began pumping his cock in earnest. His mouth found his throat again and his licked and kissed his way down the tendon to his shoulder. Hawk groaned softly, his hips thrusting into Felix’s hand slowly, then gaining speed until he was fucking himself with that hand as much as Felix was. Smirking to himself, proud that he could make Hawk react so responsively, he bit down hard on his shoulder.

Hawk gave a soft little cry and his hips jerked erratically. Felix felt a warm splatter against his stomach and along the top of his fist. It slicked his hand as he moved it, its passage now gliding wetly along the length of Hawk’s cock. He could feel the little pulses in the shaft as he milked the come from him, heard Hawk moan, and felt him shutter uncontrollably against him.

“Too much,” Hawk mumbled a moment later, one of his hands catching at Felix’s to still him. “That’s—I’m spent.”

“So you are,” Felix responded with a low purr, straightening up and releasing him.

He brought his hand up to his mouth, meeting Hawk’s eyes over the top of it, and gave a long, considering lick along the length of his forefinger. Hawk inhaled sharply, his eyes locked on Felix. Sucking at the tip of his finger, Felix hummed teasingly.

“I think I rather enjoy the taste of you, Hawk,” he said after he took his finger out of his mouth. “But I _may_ require further samples. If you’d be so kind.”

“Right now?” Hawk said, eyebrows rising in disbelief as he chuckled. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Pity,” Felix responded, then ran his come-slick middle finger along Hawk’s lower lip. “Taste yourself for me.”

Obediently— _instinctively_ , he thought realistically—the tip of Hawk’s tongue poked out between his lips and slid over the milky-white trail Felix had left over it. Then he tipped his head forward and sucked his middle finger clean before Felix realized what he was doing. As he pulled back, Felix’s cock gave a faint twitch.

“Not as good as you,” Hawk declared, as though he were critiquing a painstakingly prepared feast.

Groaning, Felix shoved him away. "All right. Get up. If you keep this up, we're going to waste the entire day in bed."

Which would hardly be some great sacrifice, but Hawk's point about exploring the town was a valid one. To say nothing of the fact that that company of men from the elves' farm might even now be tracking them to this very tavern. A long, leisurely day in bed was going to have to wait until their safety was assured, however much he wished he could cast such fears aside for a while.

Hawk rose with a light backhanded slap to Felix's hip, utterly unconcerned about his nudity as he cast around for his clothes. Fully intending to rise with him and make ready, Felix found himself remaining where he was, watching the unintentional show with interest. Hawk wasn't doing anything noteworthy, though the view of his ass was rather spectacular as he leaned over to grab his trousers from the ground. It was a disappointment to see it covered by cloth, but fortunately for Felix, the trousers were tight enough that he was treated once more to the shapely outline of it as Hawk bent for his boots. Once he'd gotten them on, he turned back toward the bed, facing Felix as he tucked himself into his trousers and laced up the front.

 _Yet another pleasant sight lost_ , Felix thought mournfully, only glancing up from his groin when Hawk cleared his throat.

He was standing next to the bed, one arm in his shirt-sleeve and the other half-raised, about to pull it over his head, watching Felix stare at him. "Enjoying the show?" he asked archly.

"No," Felix sniffed disapprovingly. "I'd prefer if you were losing clothes, not gaining them."

"Later," Hawk chuckled, pulling the shirt on with a quick jerk of his arms. "Now get up and let's go."

Grumbling, as though he hadn't been the one to drive Hawk from the bed in the first place, Felix hauled himself up and off of the mattress like it was killing him. Behind him, he could hear Hawk fussing with his clothes and getting into one of the jackets pilfered from the dead bandits. It took him only a few minutes to pull his clothes on and make himself presentable. He'd hoped to find Hawk watching when he turned back to him, but Hawk was busy counting through the coins in the pouch on his belt.

"Did you spend all of our hard earned coin in the tavern last night?" Felix asked lightly, knowing that he hadn't.

"You wish," Hawk returned without looking up. He split the coins into two piles and held one out to Felix. "Take this and buy whatever you need."

Felix took the coins, though his eyebrows lowered in confusion as he dropped them into his own belt pouch. That sounded mildly ominous and like some bullheaded stupidity to which he was going to object. "And where are you going to be while I'm doing this?"

Hawk looked at him like a man girding himself for battle. "Two strangers wandering through town together are more memorable than one. We'll draw less notice if we're not together."

Unsure if he wanted to fight him on it or not, Felix said mildly, "And it will be easier to apprehend us if we're alone."

There was a long silence as the two of them stared at each other. Finally, Hawk said blandly, "If our enemies have already infiltrated this place and are so prepared for us, it's unlikely we'll escape either way."

As much as Felix didn't like it, he had to admit that that was true. Two against an entire village wasn't a set of odds he wished to try his luck against. "And if one of us is captured, at least the other will be free," he responded grudgingly.

Hawk nodded, not looking happy about it but practical enough not to discount it as a possibility. "If anything happens," he started to say, but Felix cut him off.

"I imagine the fire I'll start will give you a clue as to where to find me," he finished, glancing at his staff before deciding that it wouldn't aid him in his desire to be nondescript.

Likewise, he realized, Hawk wasn't wearing his sword. It was resting where he'd left it the night before, propped up against the bedside table. The remainder of their meager belongings were piled on the chest. He nodded to it.

"Do we dare leave our things?"

From the way Hawk chewed at the inside of his cheek, Felix could tell that he didn't want to do it. And by the same token, he knew that he was going to advocate doing so anyway. That was something he was as yet uncertain if he found irritating or endearing about Hawk: his propensity for doing things he didn't want to do simply because it was the better option than what he did. How many men might do the same? Felix doubted that he himself would.

"We're going to have to," Hawk replied predictably. "Otherwise we're going to look awfully suspicious."

Felix didn't relish the idea of being without his staff, but only insofar as it was useful as a secondary weapon. It certainly wasn't necessary for him to cast spells. "All right," he said, straightening his cloak around his shoulders and hustling Hawk toward the door. "Let's go before I change my mind."

Although they both doubted that one rickety lock would dissuade any thief of skill, Hawk still locked the door on their way out. They descended the stairs together and made their way to the door. No one marked their passage through the tavern nor nonchalantly rose to follow them. Outside, townspeople wandered to and fro about their business, voices raised in greeting or conversation to one another. Barely anyone paid Hawk and Felix any mind, and those that did happen to look their way didn't linger on them.

"Try not to get yourself killed," Felix remarked casually as he parted ways from Hawk, affecting a jocular mean he didn't feel.

Hawk laughed, actually sounding amused. "Don't burn anything down."

It took some fortitude to turn his back on Hawk and walk away without glancing over his shoulder at him, but Felix squared his shoulders and practically marched off. The further away he got, the easier it was to keep going, and after he'd rounded a corner and lost himself in a small crowd, the paranoid desire to keep Hawk in his sight eased.

He had no set course. They were simply going to look around, purchase a few goods for their travels if they saw something they needed, and listen to the local gossip. Felix's path took him down toward the water's edge, where fishermen were loading and unloading their boats. They shouted to one another about the condition of the water and where to find the best catches, but other than that—and a few gossipy musings about the Arl and the Queen, whoever _they_ were—Felix heard nothing of import.

That didn't change as he wended his way back into the center of town. A Chantry sister was singing the Chant to a small group of faithful in a secluded alcove near the water. Two men were taking wagers on the return of the infamous ram. There were no rumors of soldiers or strange men. Barely anyone even acknowledged Felix, save to murmur a "pardon me, ser" whenever a passerby crossed paths too near him.

It was enough of a relief that after a while, Felix began to relax. Not totally. He wasn't that much of a fool to believe himself completely safe. But he found himself enjoying his morning stroll more than he thought he would when he set out.

At a bakery, he stopped for a mug of tea and a fresh-baked muffin. He tried to mimic Hawk's manner of speech when he spoke to the baker, and from her utter lack of reaction when he opened his mouth, he suspected that he was at least moderately successful. His fast broken, he resumed his unhurried investigation. A time or two he thought he caught sight of Hawk's blond hair in the crowd, but he didn't allow himself to look more attentively to be sure. There'd been no shouts or uproarious commotions, leading him to believe that whatever he was doing, Hawk was no doubt fine.

A winding path, more flagstone and dirt than actual road, took him near a hut with a small sign depicting a plant in the window. He paused, considering it, until he realized that he recognized the shape of the plant. Elfroot. A herb for healing. Perhaps the healer was a knowledgeable one and would know the means by which he could rid Hawk of his mysterious ailment. After a moment's hesitation, he opened the door and stepped inside.

An elven woman looked up as he entered, pausing in the midst of rearranging a selection of bottles on a shelf along the wall. "May I help you?"

Felix looked at the bottles, but unlike the drawing on the sign, no knowledge of what he was looking at swam to the surface of his mind. "Ah, yes, I...You're a healer, yes?"

She nodded. "Are you unwell?"

"Me? No, I'm fine." It should have been easy to speak the words, but he found himself pausing, not certain how he wanted to pursue this. If the townspeople were in league with their enemies, describing Hawk in any fashion was likely a bad idea. But if they were not... _If they aren't, I may very well waste an opportunity to see him healed_ , he chided himself. "But I've a friend who suffers from episodes of rather debilitating pain. I wondered if perhaps you could recommend a potion or tonic for it?"

Her eyes didn't widen in recognition. No expression of slyness crossed her face. She merely frowned, setting down the bottle in her hand and turning to face him fully. "What sort of pain? Where is it located?"

"Everywhere, I think," he answered.

"And what happens when it besets your friend?"

"I've only witnessed it twice and it was different each time." It was possible to tell the truth without telling _all_ of it, he knew. A little misdirection would surely set his paranoia at ease and throw the average individual off their scent. "During the first, she was unable to leave her bed. It hurt her too much to stand. She said it felt like her bones were on fire, though her skin was cold and clammy instead of feverish. The second was not so severe, merely aches and a headache, but even still, she found it easier to bear when lying down." After a moment, he added, "And a mage attempting to heal it made it worse."

Her eyebrows rose. "A spirit healer?"

Felix made a quiet sound of dissent. "No, I believe he was an ordinary mage, though he had some minor skill in healing."

Forefinger tapping gently against her chin, the elf regarded him thoughtfully. He almost worried that she was trying to align what he'd said with a description of Hawk, but when next she spoke, he set that concern aside. "Does your friend have nightmares? Or difficulty remembering things?"

"Yes!" Felix blurted out, heart suddenly pounding in his chest. Was this it? Was the source of Hawk's ailment the cause of their missing memories? "Difficulty with her memory, anyway. I'm not sure about the nightmares. I haven't asked."

The woman turned away from him to eye the bottles. After a moment, she withdrew three from the shelf and handed them to him. "This will not cure what ails her, but it should help with the pain."

"Do you know what causes it?" Felix asked, struggling to keep the desperation out of his voice. "If you do, I—"

"Go to the south end of town," she instructed him. "There is a small house near the water's edge. A man lives there named Eaton. He can tell you more, and far more accurately, of the affliction than I."

It could have been a trap. Felix knew that. Just as he knew that his inquiries weren't coming out quite as casually as he tried to make them sound. But it could also be precisely what it seemed. This woman was obviously no mage. Perhaps that Eaton fellow was. Or perhaps he'd met others with similar problems and he knew better how to treat it. In either case, it didn't matter. Felix was willing to risk it.

"Thank you, my lady," he said, inclining his head in a brief bow of courtesy. "What do I owe you for the potions?"

She blinked, looking surprised by the question. "You've no need to pay me."

"Nonsense," Felix waved that away and reached into his belt pouch. The coin he withdrew was large and silver, with a woman's face engraved on the top amidst wavering lines that seemed vaguely reminiscent of fire. "Is this enough?"

"A sovereign for three bottles?" she exhaled with a quiet, disbelieving laugh. 

Was that too much? Not enough? Indecision caused Felix to freeze, and in that moment, he wondered if he was giving himself away. Would word of this spread? A stranger offering to pay an inappropriate sum after requesting aid for a specific ailment?

"You might ask for more than that for such a sum," she continued a moment later.

Felix's breath left him in a rush of relief. "Consider it payment for the information about Eaton," he said, waving away the offer of more items. "I appreciate it. No one else I've spoken with even knew what it was."

A smile touched her mouth, erasing the lines of weariness from around her eyes for a moment. "If you've in need of aught else, I will do my best to aid you." 

"Thank you again," Felix said with a smile of his own, then departed the small shop.

He listened closely for the sound of footsteps following him to the door or the elf's voice calling for someone to attend her, but he heard nothing. If she was spying on him, she was being subtle about it. Too subtle for him to be aware of it. Resolving to remain alert but not over think it too much, Felix headed back to the water. He paused once he reached it, trying to determine which way was south, then decided to turn left and see where it led him.

Happily, the guess turned out to be the correct one.

Felix found the small house after a short walk, well away from the center of town. It was no feat of architectural genius; like the rest of the buildings in Redcliffe, it was simple wood and stone. Not far from the door was a man sitting in what appeared to be a rocking chair, facing out toward the water. His hair was more grey than black, and when Felix moved around to see his face, he discovered that he was not quite as old as his hair suggested. There were lines etched into his face and he was older than Felix by at least a decade, but he was no elderly man.

"Excuse me," Felix began, attempting to project an air of confidence he didn't quite feel. "Ser Eaton?"

The man abandoned his contemplation—if that's what it was—of the water at the sound of his name, turning toward Felix with a puzzled frown. "Do I know you?"

"No," Felix shook his head. "I was—"

Eaton sighed in relief, the frown melting into a more relaxed expression. "Thank the Maker. I thought I'd forgotten someone else."

"Does that happen to you often?" Felix asked, partly curious and partly because he wasn't sure how to begin this conversation.

"These days, yeah," Eaton replied, shaking his head. "No help for it."

"Why is that?" It might have been rude to ask such a thing outright, but Eaton was speaking freely and the elven healer had mentioned memory loss as a possible symptom of whatever might be afflicting Hawk.

The older man smiled, but there was no humor in it. "The lyrium. It's what it does."

"Lyrium?" Felix echoed, confounded.

He hadn't thought of the stuff prior to this moment, but he discovered that he knew it now that Eaton had mentioned it. Liquid magic, dazzling blue in tiny vials that filled the senses with lightning and power and a hauntingly beautiful song. A tool of mages, he knew. Though what it had to do with Eaton's memory problems and possibly Hawk was a connection that he couldn't make.

"Aye," Eaton nodded. "I was a templar once. Before the war."

The war. Felix recalled Elora and Tarlthan speaking of a war between mages and templars that had happened recently. It had to be this one that Eaton was referring to now; he was too young to have fought in something too long past.

"And you used lyrium?" Felix frowned, wondering if it was his damaged memory that made this seem odd. "I thought only mages did that."

"All templars took lyrium," Eaton told him. "Chantry started us on it as soon as our training was complete. It gave us our abilities. Made us resistant to magic. Chained us to the Chantry, too.  Made us addicts. Couldn't stop taking it or the withdrawal would kill us. Couldn't keep taking it or we'd lose our minds." His eyes suddenly focused sharply on Felix. "You're a mage, aren't you? I can feel it on you."

"Feel what?" Felix asked cautiously, thinking of what little he knew of the war and wondering if he was about to find himself attacked by someone who hadn't yet left it in the past. "I've no lyrium."

"Magic," Eaton said. "You're a mage."

Warily, he gave a slow nod. "Yes."

"You here to kill me?" Despite the question, Eaton didn't look overly troubled by the prospect.

"What?" Felix blinked in astonishment. "No. Why would I want to—No." He shook his head emphatically. "The healer in town sent me to find you. I've a friend." At the last second, he remembered that he was trying to conceal Hawk's identity and switched tack with the pronouns. "She has some kind of troubling illness and the healer thought you might be able to help me."

"She a templar?" Eaton asked with an upraised eyebrow.

"I have no idea. She's never mentioned it. But she has episodes of pain that I've tried to heal and can't. Magic just seems to make it worse. I thought it was me, that my healing abilities were too weak to help her..." He trailed off, shrugging helplessly.

Eaton was staring at him like he'd never seen him before. Uneasily, Felix wondered if the man's self-professed memory difficulties had prevented any of the conversation from sinking in.

"Mage trying to help a templar," he said quietly, more to himself than Felix. After another piercing stare, he shook his head. "Never thought I'd see that day."

"I don't know if she _is_ a templar," Felix pointed out, feeling as though the conversation was about to veer away from anything helpful. "I'm just trying to find out how to heal her."

"There's no cure for lyrium withdrawal," Eaton told him firmly. "Just gotta wait it out. Your templar's strong enough, she'll get through it. If she's not, she'll die. Or go mad. Lose her mind."

Felix frowned. "That's not very comforting."

Strangely, Eaton laughed. "Tell me about it."

That wasn’t the answer Felix wanted to hear. It wasn’t the answer he could _accept_ hearing. Perhaps it was cruel to rail against an affliction that this man had to live with, but the thought that he might lose Hawk to death or _madness_ was unconscionable. He wouldn’t do it. He was a Maker-damned mage, for Andraste’s sake. If magic couldn’t save him, what good was it?

“So that’s it?” he demanded, fighting with himself to soften his tone. It didn’t work. “I’m just to stand there and watch her go mad and die? There’s nothing to be done? Not even a _rumor_ that could be investigated?”

He was expecting Eaton’s anger or disgust. Instead, the man was staring at him again as if he was a sight so strange as to be unbelievable. Felix met the look with a scowl of impatience.

“If the Inquisition couldn’t find a cure for their commander, simple folk like us aren’t going to be able to do it,” he finally said, speaking slowly like he thought Felix a simpleton.

It probably didn’t help that Felix just looked at him blankly. “Who?”

“Used to be a templar, that one,” Eaton explained. “Word came to the rest of us that he got off it somehow. Inspired a lot of us to do the same.” A smile of morbid amusement passed over his mouth. “Or try to.”

It was a lead. A slim one, perhaps, and probably out of their reach—whatever this Inquisition was, it sounded powerful and powerful people rarely deigned to deal with _simple folk_ —but it was better than nothing.

“And he’s all right?” Felix inquired. It was possible Hawk wasn’t a templar and his ailment had nothing to do with lyrium withdrawal. Listening to this templar describe it, Felix sort of hoped that wasn’t it. But at the same time, it would give a name to the problem and there was a kind of comfort in knowing what it was one faced. “He hasn’t died or lost his mind or any of that?”

Eaton snorted. “Man’s got one of the best military minds of the Age. He’s still got it.”

All right, that was a positive sign. “Where is he? This Inquisition man?”

The templar’s brow furrowed. “Skyhold, of course.”

Caution urged him to let it go at that and investigate Skyhold’s whereabouts elsewhere. Eaton said it as if it was common knowledge. If that were so, making it obvious that he had no idea where it was might seem suspicious and strange. But impatience and a somewhat irrational fear that Hawk was going to lose his mind any moment demanded that he not waste time.

“I’m afraid I don’t know how to get there,” Felix said casually. “Might you give me directions?”

Eaton looked at him blankly. “To where?”

“Skyhold.”

His eyebrows rose. “Thinking about joining the Inquisition, are you?”

“What?” Felix frowned, somewhat taken aback by the question. “No. I want to talk to their commander about lyrium.”

Eaton made a knowing sound of agreement. “Dangerous stuff, lyrium. I’d avoid it if I were you.”

“I know, we just—” Felix broke off with a quiet sound of frustration.

It was becoming increasingly obvious that Eaton didn’t remember their conversation and Felix was left wondering what that meant for what he’d learned. Was the man’s information correct? Did this Inquisition even exist? Or was it and its templar commander some relic of the past that this addled man thought was still relevant to the present?

“You don’t remember what we’ve been talking about, do you?” Felix asked softly, studying Eaton’s face.

He frowned, his brow tightening as he tried to make sense of the question. “Did you need me for something?”

“No,” Felix replied with a slight shake of his head. “No, I don’t think so. Here.” Reaching into his belt pouch, he withdrew a sovereign and handed it to the man. “For your trouble.”

Eaton took the coin with wide, surprised eyes, looking as though he was going to protest. But Felix just pressed it into his hand with a small, somewhat sad smile and shook his head. After murmuring a goodbye, he took his leave, heading back toward the center of town.

He would ask around about this Inquisition and Skyhold, he decided. Casually, as inconspicuously as possible. When he’d been lucid, Eaton had sounded like he knew what he was talking about and because it was something instead of the nothing he’d been working with, Felix was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Worst case scenario, they got to this Skyhold and met with the commander and he told them that Hawk didn’t have the right symptoms and he couldn’t help them.

It wasn’t like they had anywhere else to go.

Refusing to let himself feel discouraged before they even tried—they had enough to be discouraged about already, they didn’t need more—Felix redirected his path to take him past what passed for the town’s alchemist and ducked in to get a few basic personal hygiene supplies. Then he went back to the tavern, meaning to drop off his purchases prior to going down and getting something to eat for lunch.

But Hawk was there when he pushed open the door, hurriedly shoving a few possessions into their packs. His sword was belted at his hip and Felix’s staff was strapped to his back. He looked suspiciously like a man making a furtive getaway. Logically, Felix knew that that wasn't the case, that Hawk wasn't sneaking away and abandoning him to the mercy of the townspeople, but a jolt of irrational outrage and hurt betrayal surged through him anyway.

Folding his arms across his chest, Felix leaned against the doorway and pointedly cleared his throat. It was oddly gratifying to see Hawk jump and whirl around to face him. “Leaving already?”

However, the streak of spiteful mean-spiritedness faded as, instead of looking panicked, Hawk exhaled in visible relief. “Felix, thank the Maker,” he breathed, giving Felix a once-over look that was assessing instead of appreciative. “You’re all right?”

The paranoid part of Felix that had been ready to fight if Hawk truly had been trying to sneak away without him withered in the face of that concern. Hawk wasn’t an actor. He wasn’t faking it. Legitimate concern started to slide like ice through Felix’s veins. Pushing off the doorway, he let his arms fall to his sides and stepped inside the room.

“Yes. Why? What’s wrong?”

“We need to go,” Hawk said shortly, already turning back to finish packing.

“Obviously,” Felix said dryly, hiding his burgeoning fear behind sarcasm.

He didn’t look at him, just shoved the shirt Felix had worn yesterday into a pack and straightened up, cinching it closed. “We’ve been discovered.”

His sarcasm evaporated. Antsy anxiety took its place. “What happened?”

Stepping up beside him, Hawk handed over Felix’s pack. “The smith recognized me.”

Felix’s eyebrows rose. “ _Recognized_ you?” He strapped on the pack and held out his hand for his staff, which Hawk obligingly handed over. “But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? Why are we running away?”

“He wasn’t a family friend, Felix,” Hawk said sharply.

Felix scowled at him. “Are you going to give me the whole story or do I have to piece it together from whatever scraps you’re willing to give me?”

Hawk took a deep, agitated breath. Felix refused to budge, standing between him and the doorway. Evidently he recognized that arguing with Felix was going to waste more time than simply telling him what he wanted to hear, because he sighed and took a half-step backward to settle himself.

Raking his fingers through his hair, Hawk said, words falling quickly from his mouth, “I went to see the smith. I wanted to buy another knife. I was only there a few minutes. He looked at me, surprise all over his face, and said he knew me. He said _they_ were looking for me." Hawk paused, clearly for effect, as he followed the momentary silence up with a darkly pointed, "And my _mage friend_.”

The light in the room wasn’t the brightest, but Felix didn’t think his eyes were playing tricks on him when he thought he saw Hawk’s cheeks redden. “So what happened?” he pressed, peering at him, feeling as though there was something about this he was missing.

Unable to hold his gaze, Hawk glanced away, biting at his lower lip. “I, uh...”

His reaction was interesting. Felix's curiosity to ferret out the cause of it briefly outweighed his concern. “You what?”

Hawk blew out a breath. “I knocked him out and ran.”

That wasn’t the conclusion he’d been expecting. The pronouncement hung there in the air between them for a moment, Felix staring at Hawk in shock and Hawk looking sheepish and hangdog at the floor.

“You assaulted a smith for recognizing you and then you ran away,” he repeated, somewhat at a loss for anything more intelligent to say. He inhaled, let it out, and took another breath. “Well, all right then." There wasn't any help for it. Whether the smith had meant good or ill by his comment, Hawk had decided their course of action with that single indiscretion. "I guess we better go before the poor fellow wakes up and sends the guards after you.”

Sneaking out of town wasn't how he'd envisioned the rest of the day going, but that was what they did. And for once, luck was on their side. Keeping to the outskirts to avoid notice, they slipped from Redcliffe before the sun began to set without drawing any notice that they could discern. Once free of the town limits, they continued walking at a moderately more sedate pace, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the possibility of yet another form of pursuit.

They spoke of the morning's findings as they walked. Hawk regaled Felix with what little geographical information he'd been able to casually coax from the people he'd spoken with: Redcliffe sat on the southern shore of Lake Calenhad and there were other towns to the north. Felix nonchalantly asked if any of those towns were called Skyhold, but Hawk shook his head and told him that he hadn't been able to get the names of any of them. He had bought them a sizeable supply of rations, however. Theoretically, it was enough to reach the next town if they continued to follow the lake and didn't stray too far from the road.

For his part, Felix was not quite as forthcoming. When Hawk asked what Skyhold was, he shrugged and said he'd overheard someone speaking of it and the Inquisition to an associate. Hawk hadn't heard of any Inquisitions either; Felix didn't have to lie when he said he wasn't able to find out anything about it. He spoke of visiting the healer and acquiring potions for pain relief should Hawk have need of them, but he didn't mention speaking with the templar or the possibility that Hawk was experiencing lyrium withdrawal.

Perhaps he should have done so, but he didn't want to give Hawk false hope for finding a way to manage the episodes or frighten him unnecessarily with the dire consequences that might befall a victim of lyrium dependency. It was bad enough that Felix found himself watching Hawk like his namesake, trying to find signs of a slipping memory that went beyond their shared amnesia. He didn't need Hawk to start doing the same to himself. Until he had a better idea of what was going on with him, or Hawk started showing more signs of the symptoms the healer had described, he intended to keep his mouth shut on the subject.

They walked until night fell, then paused along the side of the road to decide whether they ought to seek shelter for a meager camp or continue onward. Because the sky remained clear and the moon had risen far enough to provide a bit of light to see by, they both voted to keep walking. The more distance they put between pursuit—by Redcliffe guards or the men who chased them—the better.

In the darkness, they could see evidence of homesteads and farms off in the distance. Little glints of warm light that signified candles and hearths burning. It would have been nice to sleep in a bed again, or if not that then at least on a comparably clean floor by a fire, but neither man wanted to chance it. The memory of what had happened at the elves’ farm was still too fresh in their minds. Felix resigned himself to cold, rocky ground, insufficient blankets, and none of the bare skin he’d had the privilege of waking up next to this morning.

By the time the moon was high in the sky, Felix could feel exhaustion setting in. Even Hawk seemed to be dragging, though of course he hadn’t said anything to suggest he was tired. Reaching out to touch his arm and catch his attention, Felix told him it was time to make camp.

It took about twenty minutes to find a suitable spot to rest. They had to trek some distance away from the road to find a little alcove worn into the side of a hill and protected by a thick row of high bushes, but since they didn’t want to risk being found by other travelers, it was worth it. Hawk had purchased some canvas in Redcliffe and spread it over the rocks and the bushes, constructing a small makeshift shelter. It wasn’t a tavern, but it would do.

Unpacking the blankets, they hunkered down against the rock behind them, wrapped up together, sharing body heat and a small dinner of bread and cheese. After they were finished, Hawk leaned against the rock, back cushioned by a cloak and head pillowed by a shirt wedged in between himself and the rock. He pulled Felix in between his legs to rest against his chest. It was more comfortable than leaning against his side had been and Felix hurried to cover them both in blankets.

It would do, he decided, until they reached another settlement. Still, that acceptance didn’t prevent him from sniffing in irritation after he’d made himself comfortable.

“What it is?” Hawk murmured near his ear, sounding drowsy.

“You ruined my plans for this evening,” Felix told him critically, affecting an aggrieved tone. “I’m still waiting for an apology.”

“I’m sorry,” Hawk returned automatically, and such was his tone that Felix couldn’t tell if he was just saying it out of habit or if he really meant it. With Hawk, it was sometimes difficult to separate being humored from sincerity.

“You should be,” Felix continued, milking it for all it was worth. “You don’t know what you missed.”

A hint of amusement crept into Hawk’s voice. “If you tell me, I will.”

He considered letting him suffer from curiosity, but knowing Hawk, he would just shrug it off and patiently wait him out. “I got oil while you were out accosting craftsmen. I’d planned to use it with you tonight.”

Hawk shifted, nudging him with his hips, but the motion was weak, more in jest and genuine offer, and the amusement was more evident when he said, with exaggerated suggestiveness, “You still could.”

“In the dirt behind some bushes?” Felix’s inquiry was haughty with disbelief. “Unlike _you_ , I’ve a bit of couth.”

Beneath the blankets, Hawk’s hand slid down his abdomen and cupped him lightly between the legs. “Since I’m such an uncouth ruffian, I might as well take advantage of you then.”

 _Damn the man_. Felix was tired, so close to falling asleep, but his body couldn’t resist the temptation Hawk’s hand provided. Against his palm, he felt his cock begin to thicken.

Hawk chuckled softly in his ear and gave him a gentle squeeze. Felix closed his eyes and let his head fall back against Hawk’s shoulder.

“That a yes?” Hawk asked, mouthing at the exposed side of his neck.

“Since when do ruffians ask politely before they ravish their victims?”

Warm breath puffed across his skin as Hawk chuckled. “This isn’t a ravishment, your fancy lordship. Wait until we’re indoors.” He kissed Felix’s throat, then added quietly, voice dark with promise, “I’ll take you then, so hard you won’t be able to stand without feeling me inside you.”

Felix tried and failed to suppress a shiver at that. Hawk had to have felt it, but he didn’t remark on it beyond another chuckle. He just grazed Felix’s skin with his teeth and unlaced his trousers, then reached inside and took his cock out. 

There wasn’t any finesse to it. Hawk didn’t tease him or draw it out. He set a quick, hard pace that had Felix gasping his name and arching into his fist in barely any time at all. Hawk bit him once, hard enough that he suspected it would bruise by the morning, but he didn’t do anything else for himself. Felix could feel his cock hard against the small of his back, but when he offered to return the favor, in a voice slurred by the drowsiness that followed in the aftermath of his orgasm, Hawk shook his head. 

“Later,” he told him, lifting his hand to Felix’s mouth.

Without needing to be asked or directed, Felix licked his come from Hawk’s skin, murmuring a hum of approval before nipping at the pad of his finger. In retaliation, Hawk gently pinched his bottom lip.

“Sleep,” he told him. “Don’t tease.”

Felix grumbled unintelligibly at that, but he subsided as Hawk reached beneath the blanket again, tucked him into his trousers, and laced them back up for him. It was a kind gesture, considerate, and Felix smiled as he turned his head and rubbed his cheek against Hawk’s chest.

“You sleep too,” he told him, closing his eyes and succumbing to his ever-increasing urge to sleep. “Don’t keep watch all night.”

He fell asleep a few moments later with the touch of Hawk’s lips to the back of his neck and a quiet murmur in his ear, “I won’t.”


	8. Chapter 8

Despite the hopes Hawk suspected they were both harboring, they didn't find indoor shelter the next night. Or the one following. In fact, they were still on the road three days later, tired and dirty and increasingly more irritable as time wore on. Felix had snapped at him four times already since they woke up and Hawk, deciding that they'd get along better if he didn't try to make conversation that might provoke an argument, simply kept his mouth shut. 

The silence didn't last. Felix filled it with complaints. The air was too cold. The road was too broken. The scenery was too repetitive. The sun was too bright. The sky was too cloudy. The wind was too bitter. The lake was too big. It went on and on until Hawk started to wonder when Felix was going to begin blaming him for being out there in the first place. So far, that hadn't happened, but since he was obviously unhappy about being on the road again and it was Hawk's rash actions that had chased them onto it, Hawk figured it was only a matter of time. 

Especially after yesterday morning. 

Quite unexpectedly, they'd come upon an unmarked fork in the road. It had branched off sharply to the left and Felix, insisting that it was going north, had suggested they follow it. Hawk, thinking that he was correct, had glanced down that turn, fully prepared to follow it. But the sight of it—all trees and hills and the ever-present glitter of sunlight reflecting off of the lake's surface, as innocuous and completely unremarkable as the view heading off the way they'd been going—had turned his stomach so violently that he'd thought he was going to be ill right there. 

"No," he'd said immediately, shaking his head and taking a step backward. "No." 

Felix had looked at him like he'd spontaneously grown a second head. "What? Why?" 

But Hawk hadn't been able to explain his inexplicable aversion. He'd only known that he physically _could not_ set foot on that road. Just the thought of doing it had made him break out in cold sweat. He had no idea what he'd looked like, but Felix had stared at him in wary alarm for a long time as he'd continued to refuse to consider it. 

"All right," Felix had finally told him quietly, like he was talking to a spooked horse that was on the brink of bolting. "We won't go that way." 

And they hadn't. They'd kept walking the way they were going and Hawk's neck had prickled as they'd passed that unthreatening looking turn-off. He'd spent the remainder of the day feeling like an unreasonable fool and the sideways glances Felix shot him whenever he thought he wasn't looking weren't helping. But when they'd made camp that night, Felix had curled up against him, taken his face in his hands, and kissed him so thoroughly that he'd been dizzy afterward. 

Whatever Felix thought of his bizarre reaction to the road, it hadn't seemed to dampen his desire for him. Though, once again, their intimacy had been confined to kisses and the fervent stroking of hands. The oil Felix had bought in Redcliffe remained safely tucked away in his belt pouch and Hawk's dreams that night were a strangely unsettling combination of lustful fantasies of fucking Felix and something dark and disquieting that he couldn't remember upon waking. 

Traces of that disquiet had remained in the morning and they lingered still whenever Hawk let his mind wander too far. 

"Are you certain you were told that there were towns to the north?" Felix asked abruptly, breaking off his tirade about the unbearable conditions through which they were currently toiling to round on him in accusatory irritation. 

Drawn out of his struggle against the formation of some kind of nameless dread, Hawk sighed. "Yes. I asked two different people. They both said to follow the lake." 

Felix made an impatient gesture toward the lake. "And yet we've been following it for days and I could swear we aren't making any progress at all."

Hawk gave him a bland look in return. "Three days' travel is hardly no progress."

" _North_ , Hawk," Felix snapped. "I meant progress north." 

"Are you truly that desperate for a bed?" Hawk asked in bemusement. 

When he'd told Felix of the towns on the northern side of the lake, he'd thought his interest in them understandable. Towns meant more people, and more people meant news and the ability to get lost in a crowd. But the longer they traveled, the more restless and anxious to reach the towns Felix became. The first time Hawk had inquired about his eagerness, he'd claimed he wanted a bed so they could fuck each other properly. It was the answer he gave every time Hawk prodded at him, but he was beginning to think Felix was lying to him. What he couldn't fathom was why. 

Hawk wanted a comfortable sleep and the opportunity to take his time exploring Felix's body just as much as Felix wanted it, but Felix's impatience held an edge of urgency that Hawk didn't feel. He wasn't going anywhere. Surely Felix knew that. He couldn't possibly think Hawk so flighty that he'd lose interest in him if he didn't get to fuck him soon. But if it wasn't some kind of personal insecurity, what was it? 

Felix gave him a disgusted look. "We're running out of time." 

"We haven't been caught yet, have we?" Hawk asked, determined to sound more optimistic than he truly felt. But someone had to be and if that was the reason for Felix's increasingly black mood, then it fell to him. He reached out and gripped Felix's arm in reassurance. "We'll be fine, Felix."

"You can't know that for sure," Felix protested stubbornly. But there was a note of something in his voice, a chink of vulnerability in his disgruntled armor, that made Hawk certain he'd finally found the source of the problem.

"I know it as surely as I know anything," he replied serenely. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you. And if we are discovered, I'll go to the Void and back to get you free of it. _That_ I know for a certainty." 

Felix didn't look as reassured as Hawk hoped, but the belligerence seemed to bleed out of him. As far as Hawk was concerned, that tiny victory was enough to make dealing with the last few days of sniping and snapping worthwhile.

They didn't reach any of the towns Hawk had been told resided on the northern side of the lake, but as the sun was beginning to slip behind the horizon, they did come upon something so unexpected that they stopped walking in shock. All throughout the journey from Redcliffe, they'd been surrounded with verdant greenery and signs of life. Stretching out before them was nothing but desolation.

Up ahead, the road was broken in dozens of places. Whole sections of the bridge across a small river were gone and where it disappeared into the hills—held up by arches that were no doubt once graceful but now pitted and blackened—it was a crumbling ruin. The land itself was black and dead, as though some great firestorm had swept through it and burned everything it found. 

There were no plants anywhere: no grass, no trees or shrubs, not even any of the more tenacious species of weeds. And considering how dark and poisonous the ground looked, Hawk wasn't surprised. Even the river looked diseased. The water was a sluggish trickle through the wide banks, obviously greatly diminished from what it once had been, and it had an oily sheen in the fading light that quickly dashed any hope of it being drinkable.

"What in the Maker's name happened here?" Felix whispered beside him, his voice hushed and horrified. 

Hawk had no answer for him. He could only shake his head. "I don't know."

"Do you think it was the war?"

He supposed that it was a reasonable question. Neither of them knew much about the war between the mages and the templars, but it seemed likely that it had involved a great deal of magic. But not even magic, as devastating as it could be, could do _this._

"Could your magic do this, Felix?" he asked softly.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Felix shaking his head. "No." 

Hawk nodded. "It wasn't the war. It was something far worse." He couldn't name it, but he knew the truth of his words deep in his bones. Whatever this was, it was the worst thing that could happen.

And it had.

"Is it safe, do you think?" Felix asked softly.

"Hmm?"

"To travel through."

If something dangerous waited for them out there, Hawk was fairly certain they would be able to see it. They were standing on a high rise—they could see for miles in every direction. And there was nothing moving out there. No animals. No people. There weren't even any houses or glowing spots of light denoting campfires.

The land was dead. Worse than dead, for it looked as if it would never be hospitable to life again.

"I don't think there's anything out there to hurt us."

"That may very well be true, but..." Felix grew quiet. Hawk held his tongue, suspecting that there was more coming eventually and being content to wait him out. After a pause that seemed longer than it actually was, he said, "I don't want to camp out there tonight."

Merely the thought of lying down in that putrid dirt made Hawk's skin crawl. "Nor do I. Come on." Already he was withdrawing, backing away from the site of the dead land and Felix was following him. "We'll go back down the road a ways and make camp there. In the morning, we'll figure out what we're going to do."

They didn't really have many options and they knew it. They could follow the road through the wasteland and hope they made it through before night fell again, they could try to go around it and hope they found a place to replenish their supplies when they ran out, or they could go back to the fork in the road and hope Hawk reacted in a more reasonable manner this time. It was a lot of hoping and not a lot of optimism that any of it would go the way they needed it to go.

It was full dark by the time they made camp. They'd backtracked for a few miles, walking until the pervasive sense of dread and disquiet was gone, and then settled into a depression near the road to wait for dawn. There were no furtive touches now. Hawk and Felix sat huddled together, Hawk's hand resting on the hilt of his sword and Felix drumming an erratic rhythm on the haft of his staff. Without discussing it, they slept in shifts, one always awake and ready to alert the other should anything approach them.

Nothing did. The morning dawned bright and cheerful; the sky cloudless and the faint notes of birdsong were wafting through the air from the nearest stand of trees. After a quick breakfast of dried meat made tasteless by the unease of what they faced, they held a brief discussion about where to go. Neither man wanted to backtrack all the way back to the fork. Hawk felt a bit guilty over it, suspecting that Felix's reticence to do so stemmed from an assumption that Hawk would still balk at following it, but he couldn't be certain that he wouldn't. Whatever waited down that path couldn't be worse than the dead land ahead, but he knew he would rather try his luck against desolation than the nameless, unknown horrors that lurked at the end of that innocent road.

The good news, if there could be said to be such a thing, was that they'd woken early. There would be a considerable span of daylight at their disposal. If they couldn't find the end of the bleakness, they could at least make significant progress. _Unless it's as vast as a desert_ , pessimism whispered its dreary prophecy in Hawk's mind.

Resolving to ignore it, he kept his unhelpful thoughts to himself as they made their way back to the edge of the blasted land. In daylight, it looked even more forbidding than it had in the twilight. Hawk and Felix exchanged an uncertain glance, then Hawk forced himself to be the first to cross the boundary from grass and healthy soil to black, desiccated dirt.

Some of Hawk's more irrational fears proved to be unfounded. The ground wasn't corrosive. It didn't eat through the soles of his boots and poison him as they walked. There was no miasmatic haze rising from the ground to suffocate them. They weren't beset upon by any misshapen nightmarish beasts.

And it didn't go on forever.

It took about an hour to reach the foul-looking river and another twenty minutes of searching for a place to cross that wouldn't require them to set foot in the brackish, sulfuric smelling water. The land on the opposite bank was flat and Hawk thought that, were it not for the condition of the river and the ground, this would have been a fine place for a settlement. Quite a large number of people could have lived comfortably here, with plenty of room to grow crops and raise livestock. And a waterwheel could have harnessed the power for the river, had there been a current worth mentioning to turn it.

"Hawk," Felix said quietly, interrupting Hawk's survey of the far shore. A hollow _thunk_ rose from where he kicked his foot against something half-buried in the dirt. "Look at this."

Drifting closer, Hawk squatted down and peered at the object. It was metal, blackened like the dirt, and its edges were warped as if from a hot fire, but if his memory wasn't leading him astray, he thought it looked an awful lot like the blade of a shovel. He glanced up at Felix and saw the same unease in his eyes that he knew himself to be feeling. 

The further they walked, the more signs of former life they found. A bit of thin chain that looked like it might have been part of a necklace. An oddly carved piece of wood that could have possibly been a spindle from the back of a chair. Metal bars that might have made up a length of fence.

This wasn't an unfortunate place that would have been a good location for a town if only circumstances had been different. It _had_ _been_ a town. And something horrible had happened here. So horrible that it had practically erased it from existence and completely ruined the land that had once held it.

Hawk's skin was prickling and sweat was trickling one drop at a time down along the curve of his spine. Whatever it might have been, it was an evil-looking place now. He couldn't wait to put it behind them.

Another two hours and they did put it behind them.

The land started to change. The oppressive sense of fear and hatred that had been wreaking havoc with Hawk's imagination lifted. Trees began appearing, at first a little sickly and then finally hearty. Black, dusty dirt became rich and brown before giving way to lush grass and healthy weeds. The wind began to blow again; a cool refreshing breeze that Hawk hadn't realized had been absent until he felt it brushing feather-light over his skin. Dark, avian shapes began cutting through the sky above them and the high notes of birdsong filled the silence into which they had fallen.

It was another hour before Felix finally spoke.

"What do you know about templars?"

After such a long silence, the sound of Felix's voice startled Hawk out of a downward spiral of thoughts that had been getting progressively more pessimistic the further they went. He looked at him in curiosity, trying to figure out why he was asking. When he couldn't connect it to anything that had happened to them recently, he shrugged.

"Same as you, I suspect," he replied casually, having reached the conclusion that Felix was choosing a random topic in an effort to take their minds off of the memory of what they'd passed through.

"Which is what?" Felix pressed.

"I don't know," Hawk said, a little helplessly. "I haven't really thought about it."

"Then do it now."

Hawk frowned at him, but Felix just stared back at him, unperturbed by his consternation. He shook his head. "Fine."

 _Templars,_ he thought, trying to drudge up something useful to tell Felix. _What do I know about templars?_

Like every other generic topic that happened to be brought to his attention, information started filtering through his mind. It wasn't anything noteworthy, and likely a large majority of it had been informed by what he'd been told of the Order from the elves who had tended to his shoulder, but as he searched through his disorganized and often unreliable thoughts, he discovered that he did know some things.

"They're the Chantry's soldiers. They protect mages from demons and ordinary people from abominations and blood mages. Most of them were garrisoned in the Circles with the mages until the war started and the Circles were abolished." As the words left his mouth, Hawk had a flash of insight as to what had prompted the question. "Are you worried that we might encounter some of them?"

From what he recalled, or thought he recalled, they wore fairly distinctive armor. If they encountered a templar or group of templars on the road, Hawk suspected that he'd recognize that armor, provided it was being worn. Either way, he was ready and willing to defend Felix from them if they were hostile and attacked. They might be better trained than he was, but he would be damned to the Void if he simply stood by and let Felix come to harm.

"What?" Felix stared at him blankly. "No. Why would I be?"

Hawk gave him a calm look, refusing to be sidetracked by Felix's unwillingness to readily admit his fears. "No one will harm you while I live to prevent it," he told him solemnly. "That I swear."

For a moment, Felix looked like he wanted to argue the point, but in the end, he merely nodded and turned his attention back to the road. They were rounding a curve of the lake, and if Hawk's estimation of direction was true, they were finally heading north. Perhaps, he thought with wary hopefulness, it would not be too long before they reached one of the towns.

He was content to leave the matter settled, but after a few minutes of silence, Felix brought it up again. "Is that all you know of them?" 

"Templars?" Hawk pursed his lips as he dredged his memory again. Felix couldn't possibly think that he would withhold information if he had it, though if he was as worried about them as Hawk thought he was, he could understand why he wasn't quite ready to change subjects. "I think so. Why? Do you know something I don't?"

Felix chewed on his lip for a moment, frowning. "I spoke to one in Redcliffe and—"

"What?" Hawk looked at him sharply. "Are you all right? Did he try to hurt you? Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

Slanting him a sideways glance, Felix rolled his eyes. "You beat up a smith for practically nothing. I'd hate to think what you'd do to a templar."

That was misdirection. Hawk scowled, feeling the irritable itch to reach for his sword. Stupid really, considering the templar in question was not within reach of his blade and whatever harm he'd done was beyond his ability to undo. "Felix," he ground out through clenched teeth. "Just tell me what happened."

Felix had been the one asking questions about templars as though he was worried a squadron was going to leap out from behind the nearest grove of trees and drag him back to a Circle in chains, but now he was sighing as if Hawk was being ridiculous for his concern. It made Hawk want to throttle him.

"I _spoke_ to one," he said slowly, like he was talking to a child. "If you'd listen for a moment instead of jumping to conclusions, you'd know you wouldn't need to get your hackles in a twist." Hawk glared at him. Felix didn't appear remorseful for the comment. "It was a perfectly civil conversation. The man didn't even leave his chair."

It was like some kind of frustrating gift, the way Felix could say a lot without ever actually saying anything. A dimwit might be misled by his lengthy non-answers, but the more he danced around a subject, the more convinced Hawk became that something had happened that he didn't want to discuss.

"Do you have a point you'd like to reach sometime in the near future or do you simply wish to practice your conversational dancing skills?"

"Why, Ser Hawk," Felix exclaimed breathlessly, placing a hand against his chest as if in shock. "Are you asking me to dance?"

Hawk gave him a dirty look and increased his stride. He wasn't in the mood for this. Maybe being insufferable was how Felix coped with experiencing uncomfortable things, but it grated on Hawk's nerves and pricked at his temper too much to encourage it. Shouting at Felix might make him feel better for a few minutes, but he knew that ultimately it would only serve to make things strained and awkward between them.

Neither of them needed another source of stress. This whole blighted endeavor was providing enough of that.

"He mentioned having abilities," Felix said after a moment, having adjusted his own stride so that he could keep pace with Hawk. He still didn't sound contrite for his foolish provocation, but Hawk suspected that it was meant as a peace offering nonetheless. "I was wondering if you knew what they were."

"Magical resistance, probably," Hawk said, though he wasn't certain. "They're supposed to work with and fight mages, aren't they? Perhaps they're taught techniques to make themselves less susceptible to magic."

"Like what?" Felix sounded only curious, not judgmental.

Hawk shrugged. "How would I know?"

"I don't know. I just—"

"You might use magic, but I don't," Hawk reassured him. "Whatever abilities they may have to counter magic won’t be able to counter steel.” He gave the pommel of his sword a pointed pat with his palm. “And it’s steel I intend to use to cut down anyone who threatens us.”

Felix was looking at him again with that long, scrutinizing stare that could have meant anything. But his stormy eyes were unreadable when he got like this and Hawk wasn’t feeling up to the task of trying to guess at what he was thinking. It was obvious that he was afraid of the templars, even if he didn’t want to say so in as many words. And there was nothing truly capable of reassuring him until he witnessed Hawk making good on his promises.

“Don’t worry,” he told him anyway, squeezing his arm once. “We’ll get through this.”

* * *

They didn’t encounter any templars on their journey. There were a few travelers that they passed on the road, and once they happened upon a merchant who sold them more food and a few fresh jugs of water. They were circumspect whenever they had occasion to speak with strangers; asking after general news with only passing curiosity and telling to anyone who asked a rather bland tale of heading north to attend the wedding of one of Hawk’s cousins. It served to explain why they were on the road in the first place without generating any undue interest in their vague destination or the identity of the nonexistent cousin.

One day melted into another as they followed the road, the landscape changing only marginally as they continued north. The lake remained at their left, occasionally glimpsed through parts in groves of trees or from atop rises. It seemed to stretch on forever, the dark blue of the water meeting the brighter blue of the sky. It made Hawk wonder how large the lake was. More than that, it made him wonder how large the country that held it was and if it was the same one they’d begun in at the start of this bizarre adventure or if they’d managed to cross the border into another one.

He wondered if entering another country would be enough to shake pursuit for good. Or if whoever was after them had a longer reach than he could imagine.

When they made camp, Hawk and Felix spent the night curled around each other: for warmth, for comfort, for intimacy. The oil Felix had procured remained unopened in his pack, waiting to be used. Felix turned up his nose at every suggestion that didn’t include a bed and Hawk was too wary of being disturbed by hostiles to want either of them to completely disrobe. A quick fuck would have been possible, of course, against a tree in some secluded copse or against the wall of the next cave they happened upon, but Hawk wasn’t keen on their first time—that either of them remembered, regardless of whether it was true—being rushed and fumbled. He wanted to take his time learning Felix’s body, which places a touch or a kiss might elicit a reaction.

And from the way he frequently caught Felix staring at him, eyes dark with hunger, he thought he felt much the same way.

At night they traded kisses and whispered to one another of what they’d like to do to each other when they finally had the opportunity. Hands that once fumbled at trousers lacings grew adept at quickly untying them and they both learned how best to bring the other to completion with only palms and fingertips. Once, on a particularly deserted stretch of highway, Hawk had pushed Felix behind one of the broken statues that littered it in places and took him in his mouth. It was a foolish risk and he knew it, but no one happened upon them and afterward, he thought that it was worth it for the taste of Felix on his tongue and the residual tingle along his scalp where Felix’s hands had gripped his hair a little too hard.    

For now, it was satisfactory, the building anticipation more of a titillation than a source of frustration, but it would not be like that forever. Hawk hoped that they reached one of the northern towns before that happened. Otherwise, travel was surely to become unpleasant as patience frayed.

About a week after passing through the black, blasted land, the sky—before cloudy and threatening some sort of storm—dawned clear and bright. The temperature was moderately warmer too. Not _warm_ by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a vast improvement from the frigid conditions they’d started in.

Felix greeted the day in a good mood, but Hawk woke feeling unsettled and strange. There was tension in his shoulders that made his back ache and tightness in his neck that was sending tendrils of discomfort upward toward his head. Another headache was threatening, he concluded, possibly a strong one. But at least it explained why he was feeling so off.

He ate little during breakfast and was mostly silent as they walked. Beside him, Felix prattled on and on about whatever happened to enter his mind. Hawk listened, sometimes tossing in a comment or opinion when he felt moved to do so. But for the most part, he remained lost in his thoughts. The tension was ratcheting higher with every mile they walked and a dull throb had begun at the back of his head.

Shortly after noon, Felix caught his arm and pulled him to a stop. “What do you think that is?”

Lifting his eyes from where he’d been blankly watching the road pass beneath his feet, Hawk followed the direction of Felix’s pointing finger. Ahead of them, in the midst of water glittering with reflected sunlight, rose a dark, vaguely cylindrical shape. They were too far away from it to see it clearly, but even at this distance, it couldn’t be anything else but some sort of tower.

In what had to be the most bizarre thing to happen to him since finding himself running through a forest in the middle of the night, Hawk felt every muscle in his body lock. It was like what he imagined having an immobility spell cast on him would feel like. Felix was talking, saying something, but Hawk couldn’t look away from the dim shape of the tower. He couldn’t get his mouth open to speak. He wasn’t convinced he was still even breathing.

The throbbing in his head became a lancing burst of pain that would have made him groan, if he could have gotten his throat working to utter it. 

“Hawk?” Felix’s voice was rising. “ _Hawk_.” His hand gripped Hawk’s shoulder but he barely felt it. Then Felix was standing in front of him, taking him by the other shoulder and giving him a shake. View of the tower broken, Hawk blinked and sucked in a huge gasping breath.

“What?” 

Felix was scowling at him. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I...” He had no idea how to answer that. He didn’t know. Gingerly, not wanting to aggravate his head, Hawk gave a brief, slow shake of it. “A headache.” He wet his lips. “It’s strong.”

After a searching look, Felix dug into his pack and produced one of the bottles he’d gotten from the healer in Redcliffe. “Here,” he said, unstoppering the bottle and pressing into Hawk’s unresisting hand. “Drink some of that.”

Released from his weird paralysis, Hawk lifted the bottle and looked dubiously at it. “How much am I supposed to drink? All of it?”

Felix frowned, now eyeing the bottle himself. “I’m not sure. Take a quarter and see if that helps? If not, drink some more.”

Deciding that it was probably very unlikely that a healing tonic would cause harm if he drank too much, Hawk brought the bottle to his mouth and drank a quarter of the liquid in one gulp. The taste of it was bitter, and although it was not as bad as the stuff Elora had given him, Hawk still grimaced.

“Well?” Felix prompted after a moment. “How do you feel?”

Hawk considered. The pounding in his head hadn’t abated, though the jagged pain radiating up his neck wasn’t nearly as sharp as it had been a moment ago. “Slightly better.”

“Drink more then,” Felix instructed, jerking his chin toward the bottle.

Without arguing, he downed another quarter. Then another when that failed to make the headache go away. Finally, he drank the whole thing and tucked the empty bottle into his own pack. The headache had subsided to a dull throb that he could mostly ignore and the tightness along the back of his shoulders had dissipated.

“I think that’s as good as it’s going to get,” Hawk told him, after stretching his neck to either side and rolling his head didn’t provoke any further stabs of agony.

“If you need another...”

“No.” Hawk shook his head. The throbbing didn’t increase. “It’s fine.” He didn’t look toward the tower, his gaze carefully focused on Felix’s face before he looked out along the road. “Let’s keep walking. I don’t want to have wasted a day like this if it comes back.”

The headache didn’t return, but the closer they got to the tower, the more anxious Hawk became. It was akin to fear, but it was so ludicrous to be afraid of a building that Hawk refused to credit it as a legitimate emotion. It was something else. It had to be. And it was likely not the tower that prompted it, but memories of that swath of dead land and the threat of another debilitating episode of pain.

“Do you think it’s a city?” Felix asked him a few hours after they’d first spotted the damned thing.

Hawk didn’t need to ask him what he was talking about. Very carefully, he didn’t look at the object in question, growing ever larger the closer they got to it. “In the middle of a lake?”

“Just because it looks like that from here doesn’t mean that’s where it is,” Felix pointed out reasonably. “It could be built along the shore.”

Hawk didn’t really care how it was built or where it was located. He just wanted to get away from it. And as the trepidation grew stronger and more insistent within him, he realized that _this_ was probably the source of his refusal to take that fork in the road almost two weeks ago. That road had looked to lead north along the lake and that was exactly where they were currently headed. And whenever he accidentally caught a glimpse of the tower, he felt nauseated and cold sweat broke out over his skin.

It was irrational and stupid; he tried his best to keep his ridiculous reaction to himself, but whether he was successful at it he didn’t know. Felix wasn’t staring at him in concern or mincing his words in an attempt to tiptoe around potentially sensitive subjects. He didn’t ask how he was doing or why he was acting so strangely. He simply talked about whatever he wanted to and when Hawk didn’t try to continue any conversations about the tower, he didn’t seem to think it unusual.   

They reached it just as night was beginning to darken the sky.

Felix was wrong. It wasn’t built on an outcropping of land. It was positioned some considerable distance away on an island, reachable only by boat. There were no bridges to connect the tower to the shore and casual swimmers looking for a lark wouldn’t be able to reach it. There was a dock jutting out into the water and a small rowboat that could have fit perhaps five people, though it looked mostly disused and weathered. No lights shone from the windows that had to be carved into the face of the tower and no sounds drifted out across the water. The thing was massive, large enough to hold a town, and yet all was silent and seemingly abandoned.  

Just looking at it made Hawk feel an inexplicable, shameful impulse to run screaming in the other direction.

“Shall we camp here for the night?”

“ _No_.” The refusal was so vehement that Hawk startled them both. He could see Felix’s eyes widen in the gloom. “No,” he tried again, this time in a calmer voice. “Let’s keep going.”

“Is something wrong?” Felix asked in a carefully neutral tone.

Lying didn’t come easily to him. “I...” He tried, but he’d barely gotten started before he stumbled over himself into silence. He didn’t want to lie to Felix, even if doing so might spare a little of his pride. “It’s... I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”

“Try,” came the quiet encouragement.

“I just—Whatever that is.” He gestured vaguely toward the tower. “I don’t want to be near it. It’s foolish, I know, to be so...” _Say it_ , he ordered himself. _He deserves the truth_. “So frightened of it, but there’s something about it I can’t...” He trailed off into frustrated silence. Throat working for a moment, he tried to bring some other words to bear, but nothing came. “I don’t want to stay here,” he finished softly, unable to conceal the shame such an admission caused him.

After all, how could he convince Felix that he would face templars and brigands and monsters for him if he quailed at the sight of a harmless building?

Felix’s hand found his and curled tightly around it, twining their fingers together. “Do you remember this place?” His voice was curious, not accusatory or judgmental.

“No. At least, I don’t think I do. I can’t recall anything about it. It’s just a feeling.”

A squeeze to his hand preceded Felix’s words. “Then we’ll keep going. I’ve got another few hours left in me.”

Hawk sighed, not mollified by this easy acceptance of his peculiarity. “I’m sorry. I know I’m behaving like a child.”

“No,” Felix said somberly. “You’re not. Something about it disturbs you. Perhaps you’ve been here before and can’t remember it. Or there’s some similarity between it and something in your past that you’ve forgotten. We remembered our names like this, didn’t we? Trusting our instincts? Yours are telling you to leave. So we shall go.”

It was difficult to tell time with total accuracy in the dark, but Hawk estimated that they walked for approximately three more hours before they made camp. The tower still lurked behind them like a great, hulking monstrosity, but they’d put enough distance between it and the dock that presumably led to it that Hawk didn’t feel quite so suffocated by it. He thought he might have difficulty getting to sleep, but he knew it wouldn’t be as impossible as it would have been had they made camp on the shore across from it.

Felix tugged him into his arms after they’d set up their makeshift campsite, pulling him in against his chest like he meant to hold him all night and be his shield against the specter haunting him. It wasn’t necessary; some part of Hawk’s pride railed that he be seen as weak enough to need this kind of support. But he didn’t pull away or offer protest, and when he finally fell asleep, it was with his head tucked under Felix’s chin.

He woke, some indeterminate time later, to screams and shouting. When he tried to sit up, he realized there was a heavy weight against his chest, pressing him down into the ground, and his hands were restrained by something vice-like that kept them flattened down to either side of his head. He fought wildly, panicked, and the screams became Felix’s name, shouted over and over again.

It took a long time to hear Felix’s voice murmuring his name in soft, soothing tones. It took even longer to realize that it was Felix on top of him, keeping him prone with his weight, and Felix’s hands tight around his wrists. Eventually, Hawk realized that they were both breathing hard, as if they’d run an incredibly difficult race, and that his heart was pounding.

“What—?” His voice was hoarse, unsteady. He swallowed dryly and tried again. “What’s going on? Are—Are you all right?”

“You were having a nightmare, I think,” Felix responded, easing back slightly so that he could look him in the eyes. He did not release his wrists. The fire had burned low, but there was just enough light to make him out in the darkness. “You were crying out, yelling like you were in pain. I tried to wake you out of it and you reacted violently.”

“Violently?” Hawk asked in a disbelieving whisper. “Are you hurt?” His voice became shot through with horror. “ _Did I hurt you?_ ”

Felix was watching him. He could feel the intensity of his gaze like a physical touch on his face. Then slowly, by gradual increments, he loosened his hold on Hawk’s wrists and released him. Pushing himself up, he sat back, straddling Hawk’s hips.

Shakily, his arms trembling with the aftershocks of what had just happened, Hawk pushed himself up until they were facing one another, almost nose to nose. There was sweat dripping down his back and it felt like his hair was matted to his forehead. He felt off-balance and dizzy with weakness, and when he brought his hand to his face to brush the hair off his skin, he could feel it shaking.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked again, urgently. That was more important than anything else.

Felix sighed. “Not terribly.” As Hawk stiffened, he continued in a tone of casual disinterest, “You caught me across the face before I thought to secure your hands. It’s nothing. I mean it. Stop looking at me like that.”

“Forgive me. Maker forgive me, I didn’t—”

Felix took his face in both hands, cutting him off. Hawk closed his eyes, but opened them a second later, after Felix started stroking his cheeks with his thumbs.

“I’m not angry with you, foolish man,” he said gently, leaning in until his forehead touched Hawk’s. “I should’ve known better than to wake you like that.” His thumbs kept up the soothing, circular caress against his overheated skin. “How are you feeling?”

Hawk laughed; a toneless, bewildered laugh that contained no humor. “I don’t—” He took a gulp of air. “I’m here. I’m not—I’m awake.”

“I know.”

Lifting his hands, Hawk loosely curled his fingers around Felix’s wrists. He didn’t pull his hands away, simply held onto him like he was the sole source of stability in the midst of a maelstrom. “I _am_ sorry. I never wished to hurt you.”

He felt Felix’s nod more than he saw it. “I know that too.”

Although it was difficult to see him properly, Hawk gave him a searching look anyway, simultaneously trying to ground himself in reality and to see if he’d caused Felix injury. There didn’t appear to be blood anywhere, but it was too dark to be able to decipher shadow from potential bruise. Felix saw the way that he was studying him and must have interpreted it correctly, because he shook his head gently, then pulled back to give Hawk a kiss on the forehead.

“I’m _fine_. It’s you I’m worried about.”

Hawk stared at him. “I just had a nightmare. _You_ were struck.”

Ignoring the perfectly reasonable argument Hawk was making, Felix started combing his fingers through his hair, stroking it back away from his face. “About the tower?”

Opening his mouth to answer, Hawk found himself without a ready collection of words to do so. “It was...” His mind shied away from it when he tried to examine what he could remember, but he knew that he owed it to Felix to weather the discomfort. Yet when he forced himself past his aversion, he couldn’t recall what the nightmares had been about. There were vague impressions—sickening purple light, noise that might have been screams, pain, a smile that made his stomach twist with nausea—but nothing concrete. Nothing at all that could justify his actions. “I don’t know. I can’t remember it clearly. Just—” He frowned, forcibly stilling his hands when he began to feel them tremble. “Just purple light.”

“Not the tower then,” Felix murmured, the faintest lilt to his voice as he tried to lighten the mood. “That place looks far too drab for a color as vibrant as purple.”

It sounded like forgiveness, though Hawk had a sneaking suspicion that if he said anything about it, Felix would deny that anything happened to make forgiveness necessary. But he’d done enough damage tonight; he wouldn’t let Felix keep comforting him like this.

"You think that’s it?” Hawk asked, making a valiant attempt at humor. “I’m afraid of the color purple?”

Felix breathed out a tiny laugh. “No one’s perfect.”

Tipping his chin up, Hawk pressed a quick, chaste kiss to that smiling mouth. “You’ve certainly fooled me.”

“Oh please,” Felix snorted, though through the feigned impatience, Hawk could hear the pleasure he took from the compliment. “I know you get annoyed with me.”

“It’s a character flaw. I’m imperfect, remember?”

Another soft snort followed that question. Felix didn’t respond further, just leaned in and kissed him. It was soft and gentle, affectionate instead of passionate, meant to soothe and comfort, not inflame. Hawk let it happen, let him find his equilibrium in the warmth of Felix’s lips. Surprisingly, though perhaps by now he shouldn’t have been surprised at the magic Felix could work without his mana, it settled him.

As Felix eased back, he brushed the pad of his thumb over Hawk’s upper lip. “Would you like to break camp?”

Hawk wasn’t looking forward to going back to sleep, if he could even manage it, but he didn’t want to disrupt Felix’s sleep any more than he’d already done either. “No, it’s all right. I’ll be fine.”

Although he gave him a long, penetrating look, Felix didn’t argue with him. Instead, he coaxed him to lie back down, guiding Hawk to rest his head against his chest. The fingers of one of Felix’s hands stroked idly through his hair. The other rubbed up and down his back. Under his ear, Hawk could hear the beat of Felix’s heart, strong and steady and more real than the nightmares.

* * *

In the light of day, Hawk could clearly see the dark bruise high on Felix’s cheek. It wasn’t quite a black eye, but there was no question that he’d taken a blow. Felix caught him looking at it immediately and, without saying a word, kissed him so passionately that for a moment, he forgot everything else.

Maker only knew why, but Felix didn’t blame him for what happened. Hawk thought that whatever the good things were that he might have done in his life, none of it was good enough to deserve someone like him.

They packed up their tiny camp, Felix already chattering on about the odd-looking bird he’d seen when he’d gone to replenish their water supply as if nothing had happened. Save for the guilt and shame, Hawk felt better now than he had last night. The incomprehensible dream faded out of his awareness and the tower, once they began walking, faded into the trees and the mist rising off the lake. They were leaving it behind with every step and Hawk was happy to leave whatever demons it had stirred in his mind back there with it.

By midmorning they reached another crossroads. Ahead, the road continued ever onward into hills and trees and what looked to be the tiniest hint of farmland. To their left, it curved around the tip of the lake, following the shore slightly southward. There was a signpost—the first they’d seen—planted into the ground beside the turnoff. The sign pointing forward read _Denerim_ and the one pointing left read _Orzammar_. Neither name meant anything to either of them.

“That one,” Felix said finally, flicking a finger toward the one spelling out _Denerim_.

Hawk arched an eyebrow. “Why?”

Felix shrugged. “I like the way it sounds.”

“ _If_ you’re pronouncing it correctly.”

Rolling his eyes, Felix started walking. “It’s hardly difficult. Unless....” He shot Hawk a surprised glance that seemed incredibly false. “Can’t you read?”

By way of answer, Hawk elbowed him in the ribs.

They walked in companionable silence for a time, then Felix asked thoughtfully, “Do you have nightmares often?”

Hawk considered the question before he answered. “If I do, I don’t remember them. Why? Have I—”

“No,” Felix cut him off before he could finish asking the question. “No, last night was the first time that happened.”

He hesitated only a moment. “Perhaps it would be better if we slept apart from now on.”

Felix’s expression went through a progression of surprise and hurt before it settled on irritation. “Tired of me already, are you?”

“What?” Hawk gaped at him. “ _No_! You know that isn’t it. I just—I don’t want to hurt you and if I’m a danger while I’m asleep, then I shouldn’t be sleeping near you.”

“You aren’t a danger,” Felix insisted firmly.

“But—”

“If you were a danger, you would have lashed out before and you would have done real damage. But you haven’t and you didn’t and I’m not going to listen to any more of this self-sacrificing nonsense,” he snapped furiously.

Very gently, Hawk said, “I thought that was why you asked.”

Pressing his lips together until they thinned, Felix said nothing, radiating irritated disapproval. Hawk sighed, not knowing what else to offer. He couldn’t control his dreams or himself while he was asleep. And while the prospect of sleeping without Felix’s body pressed up against his own wasn’t a pleasant one, he would give that up before he saw another bruise on his face.

“Templars have nightmares,” Felix said a few minutes later, breaking the thick silence that had fallen over them.

“All right,” Hawk said slowly, not knowing where he was going with that.

Felix looked at him. “Do you know what lyrium is?”

He was switching topics so fast Hawk felt like he was getting whiplash. “It’s...” The knowledge slowly bubbled up to the surface of his mind. “It’s a substance mages use to enhance their magic.”

“Templars take it too,” Felix told him, watching him closely. “Their abilities come from it. That’s what the templar at Redcliffe told me.”

There was a point to this. Hawk knew that much. But what it might be remained a mystery. “Are you suggesting that we purchase lyrium?”

Felix didn’t answer the question. “The templar, Eaton, he told me that they become addicted to it and that continued use erodes a templar’s mind. I saw evidence of that firsthand. He forgot what we’d been speaking of halfway through the conversation.”

“Then we _won’t_ purchase lyrium,” Hawk replied decisively. “We already have memory problems. We don’t need more.”

“To continue using lyrium will cost the templar his mind,” Felix continued, ignoring Hawk’s contribution to the bizarre, practically one-sided conversation. “To stop can kill him.” He paused, and there was a weightiness to it that made it seem significant. “Or leave him with terrible pain and nightmares.”

It took him a while, but he got there eventually. “Are you suggesting that _I’m_ a templar?”

Felix’s eyes were intent on his own. “It’s possible.”

No, it was preposterous. That was what it was. Hawk laughed. He couldn’t help it.

“Felix,” he began, shaking his head. “I’m not—”

“Think about it,” Felix waved his objection aside. “You’ve got that sword and you know how to use it. Someone trained you. No farmhand could throw a knife the way you did during that fight with the bandits.”

“Yes, but just because I know how to handle a sword doesn’t mean—”

“Look at you!” Felix pointed a finger at him. “Have you taken even one look at yourself? That isn’t the body of a merchant or a baker. It’s the body of man who’s spent his entire life training for battle.”

“That doesn’t make me templar, Felix. I could very well be a normal soldier.”

“A soldier with lyrium withdrawal?” he demanded.

“We don’t know that’s what it is!”

“I described your condition to the healer. She sent me to the templar and _he_ certainly seemed familiar with it.”

He just couldn’t credit it. A templar. They were as well-trained as chevaliers. Perhaps better trained, depending on who was doing the training and how dedicated the recruit was. He couldn’t possibly be a templar. Could he?

“That still doesn’t explain why I’m with you,” he said, shaking his head. “In fact, being with you proves that your theory’s wrong.”

“Does it?” Felix was giving him that half-cocked look that suggested that Hawk was a brainless idiot. “I think it explains everything.”

“How?” Hawk challenged.

“I never said you were an intelligent templar,” Felix muttered under his breath, sounding terribly disappointed with him. 

Sighing, Hawk made a beckoning gesture with his hand. “Well? You’ve solved the mystery. Let’s hear it.”

“I’m a mage. You’re a templar. There was a war between mages and templars,” Felix said slowly, as though he was speaking to someone so insensible that he worried that talking too fast would make what he was saying incomprehensible. Hawk resisted the urge to snap at him. “We’re being chased by mages and templars.” He frowned at him, voice returning to a normal speaking speed. “It’s really very simple, Hawk. I don’t know why you’re being so dense about it.”

Even with the pieces of the puzzle laid out with painstaking care, they weren’t aligning into an image that Hawk recognized as anything. His stare must have been exceptionally blank, because Felix threw up his hands in frustration.

“You’re _my_ templar!” he exclaimed. “It’s forbidden, isn’t it?” Softer, under his breath, he murmured, “I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere.” Then, louder, “Mages and templars falling in love with each other isn’t permitted. But we did and someone found out. It was a great betrayal, especially with both factions going to war, and now they’re chasing us. No doubt to make me Tranquil for seducing a templar and to execute you for consorting with evil mages and besmirching the integrity of the Order and whatever.”

To hear Felix’s theory spelled out like that made it seem even more ridiculous than Hawk had already thought it was. “So… what?” he asked doubtfully. “Mages _and_ templars are trying to kill us?”

“Yes!” From the triumph in Felix’s voice, he evidently thought that Hawk had finally cottoned on. “We’ve betrayed them both, haven’t we? They started a whole war just to prove... whatever it was they wanted to prove. But here we are, everything the other ought to hate, proving that the fighting was never necessary.”

The frightening thing was, the more Felix talked about it, the more it started to make sense. It was a crazy kind of sense, rooted in impossibilities and unrealistic expectations of their own importance, but Hawk’s doubt was slowly turning into acceptance despite his best efforts to apply rationality to the extravagant tale Felix was spinning. Because the fact was, they _were_ being chased.

Whoever they were, whatever they’d done, it was important enough to send a group of men across the country to apprehend them. They’d followed them from wherever they’d originally started out, hunted them down to the elves’ farm, and then had agents in Redcliffe on the lookout for them. And they’d found themselves in a land recently devastated by the mage-templar war. There’d been a hole in the sky, for Maker’s sake, and surely only magic could have caused that. Just as it was most likely magic that had stolen away their memories of themselves yet left enough of their minds intact that they retained the knowledge to function in the world. A head injury severe enough to damage memories likely would have impacted everything else as well.

And Felix had a point. Hawk was a trained warrior. He had to have learned his skills somewhere. It sounded like nonsense, yet here they were living a life that fit into the picture Felix was painting. It felt like the ground was tilting under his feet, disorienting him before it righted itself.

Maker’s breath, was it possible he was right?

“I—” Hawk’s brain finished processing the entirety of Felix’s speculation, delivering a crucial bit of information he’d overlooked right in the middle of his sentence. Whatever he was intending to say was overridden with a wondering, almost shy, “You’re in love with me?”

Felix gave him a flat, unimpressed stare. “Are you going to tell me you aren’t?”

After all the grief Felix gave him on a regular basis, Hawk couldn’t resist the opportunity now that it was so artfully presented to him. “In love with myself?” he asked in a tone of consideration. “I don’t think I am.”

There was the tiniest twitch of Felix’s mouth before he schooled it into a frown. “You aren’t funny.”

He was. He was hilarious and they both knew it. Hawk grinned at him. “And you aren’t wrong.”

Now Felix smiled, and in the expression, Hawk could see a mixture of satisfaction and pleasure. “There? You see! If I’m not wrong about that, then I’m not wrong about what happened to us, either.”

That conclusion didn’t exactly follow, though this time, Hawk decided not to argue the point with him. Instead, it was with fond exasperation that he said, “You sound awfully pleased by this.”

“It’s romantic,” Felix told him loftily, stepping closer to thread his arm through Hawk’s. “A mage and a templar, taking on the world together, refusing to be parted.” Smirking at Hawk, he added, “Maybe someone will write a book about us.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay between chapters! Life got a little hectic there for a while and writing went by the wayside. Currently, I'm writing another gift fic for my best friend's birthday, so because that's got a quickly approaching deadline, I'm devoting most of my time to writing that. Once it's done, I'll be back on my normal schedule updating this one. Thanks for your patience!

It wasn't long after deciding that Hawk was probably a templar that Felix came clean about his concerns following his conversation with Eaton. Hawk did the best he could to reassure him that he wasn't forgetting anything he'd learned since that first panicked flight through the dark, but he couldn't be certain that it did any good. He still caught Felix watching him more than he wasn't and now that he knew what was bothering him, he could detect the faintest hint of concern in his too-sharp gaze. But as far as he knew, he _wasn't_ losing any of his new memories and aside from the at times agonizing pain, he didn't feel like he was dying.

As he'd told Felix, if this Commander of the Inquisition could survive the lyrium withdrawal, so could he. He couldn't claim to speak for the man, but Hawk could be immovably stubborn when he set his mind to it and pain or no, he had something to live for. When Felix arched a curious eyebrow at that declaration, he simply stared at him until Felix finally looked away with what appeared to be the lightest dusting of pink across his cheeks.

It might have been a trick of the light—the sun _was_ beginning its descent toward the horizon—but Hawk had a smug suspicion that he'd unequivocally won that round.

The largely untamed wilderness through which they'd spent most of their time walking had slowly melted into huge fields that were sometimes filled with crops and other times clearly were pastures for livestock. Civilization was fast approaching and the knowledge buoyed their flagging steps. When darkness fell, the warm glow of candlelight could be seen in the distance, scattered at first and then concentrated off to the south.

Instead of pushing their luck and possibly walking into a bad situation, they decided to make camp for the night. It took some cajoling on Hawk's part, but he eventually got Felix to agree to settle into the side of a haystack near the road. It was a little prickly where pieces of straw poked into them, but it was warmer than they'd had since leaving Redcliffe, so much so that they didn't even need to light a fire.

They were back on their feet at dawn, leaving the main road to follow a narrower, less traveled footpath, and by the time the sun had risen, they were coming into view of what appeared a moderately sized village. From the vantage of their approach, the village looked to be smaller than Redcliffe, though more concentrated in its layout. The crowing of roosters split the silence of the early morning and as they traded the uneven footpath for the more solidly packed dirt of the town proper, they were passed by a few scruffy but well-fed looking dogs.

Shutters were just being thrown open on the stone homes when they reached the large open area that denoted the village commons. On the other side of it was a sprawling two-story building with a sign that, although weathered, was clear enough from a distance that it spoke to regular coats of paint. It wasn't a rich village, but it didn't seem to be a destitute one either. Unfortunately, it wasn't as heavily populated as they would have liked and it didn't have the look of a place that saw frequent travelers; for that reason alone, Hawk knew that they would not be remaining for long.

"Shall we go pay the tavern a visit?" Felix asked quietly, tipping his head toward the building across the way. 

"Might as well," Hawk responded, scanning the area one last time. Down a corridor between two homes, he saw a man emerge with an adolescent child and head away from where they were standing. The pair looked to be dressed for labor. The child was proudly carrying a bucket of tools and smiling up at the man, as though he was happy to be accompanying him to whatever work he was clearly going to do.

They crossed the commons, garnering no attention that they could discern. The streets, such as they were, were still vacant and Hawk didn't feel any of the prickling unease that suggested they were being watched. As sleepy as the town was, he half expected the tavern to be closed, but when Felix tried the door, it opened easily under his hand.

Inside, the large room was airy and clean. The walls were exposed stone and large wooden beams held up the ceiling, but the floor was clear of debris or spills and the tables they passed on their way to the bar had been thoroughly wiped down. The bar itself was a curving slab of wood, either carved from a crooked branch of a large tree or fitted together so cleverly that it looked to be one continuous length. Behind it, a middle aged woman was cleaning glasses.

She glanced up as they got closer, her expression of curiosity shifting into a cautiously friendly smile when she realized that they weren't locals. Although she appeared older than they were by what looked to be a few years, the beauty of her youth had not faded: her hair was long and dark, her skin tanned by the sun yet without the harsh lines of those who spent all their time in the fields, and her eyes were such a clear green that their color was visible across the floor. Hawk wondered if the tavern was hers. He wondered if it was safer to linger here than it had been in Redcliffe.

"Good morning to you," the woman greeted once they were within conversational distance. Her gaze lingered appreciatively on Felix for a moment—and of course he noticed; Hawk could see him preening under the attention—before coming to rest on him. "I've not seen either of you before." 

"No," Hawk agreed, with a crooked smile and a brief headshake. "We're just passing through."

The woman didn't try to pry. She nodded, accepting his response as if it was one she'd heard hundreds of time and lifted her eyebrows in invitation. "Can I get you anything before you head back to the road? Something to eat or drink?"

"Both, if you wouldn't mind," Felix responded before Hawk had a chance to say anything, leaning his elbow on top of the bar and flashing her a smile that practically oozed with flirtation. "I'm afraid we're positively _famished_." 

She smiled, though whether it was because she was captivated by Felix’s smile or because his answer promised profit Hawk didn’t know. “Have a seat,” she invited, gesturing widely toward the interior of the tavern. As empty as it was, they had their pick of seating. “I’ll bring it out directly.”

With another one of those smiles, Felix swept a stool out from the bar and sat down right there. Having no recourse to object for something more private without causing a scene, Hawk was left to sit down next to him. The woman filled two large glasses with water, pushed them across the bar with a smile, then set about filling two mugs with steaming liquid. A faint herbal smell filled the air as the steam wafted upward from the lips of the cups.

“My own brew,” she said with another ready smile as she set the mugs down to either side of the water glasses. 

Suspicion pricked at Hawk’s mind as he eyed the mugs, knowing that it could as easily be poison or a sleeping draught as it could be a legitimate mixture of tea. What kept him from reaching out to catch his wrist as Felix lifted his and took a sip was that Hawk knew he wasn’t being wholly objective. Felix’s easy, flirtatious smiles to this woman were bothering him. After all the nights spent being as intimate as circumstances allowed, and certainly after that conversation about his possibly being a templar, Hawk had thought that it meant something. Yet at the first sight of a single woman—insofar as they knew; she could very well have a husband elsewhere in the tavern or the town—Felix was practically drooling all over the bar. 

He was jealous and a bit confused and he didn’t like it. He kept it off his face, smiling pleasantly when the woman glanced his way, but he could feel the tension winding his body up tight and uncomfortable. Breakfast was going to be interminable. He just wanted it to be over so he could take Felix aside and ask what was going on. 

Their drinks distributed, the tavernkeeper headed into the kitchen to prepare their food. Hawk could feel the questions scratching at his throat, demanding to be spoken. To silence them, he picked up the mug and took a large swallow of the too hot tea. It burned his tongue, but it distracted him enough that he didn’t blurt out anything he was thinking.

Under the edge of the bar, he felt Felix’s hand settle on top of his thigh and squeeze. Grudgingly glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, Hawk raised an eyebrow. Felix carefully mouthed two words— _trust me_ —and gave his thigh another squeeze. Hawk regarded him slantwise for a few seconds longer, then turned his attention back to his tea. The tavernkeeper arrived a moment later with two plates piled high with bacon, eggs, buttered toast, and a selection of berries.

Ill-humor wasn't enough to prevent Hawk's stomach from growling as the smell of cooked food assaulted his nose. It felt like an eternity since they'd eaten this well. He took a handful of coins out of his pouch and passed them over to their host, then tucked into breakfast with gusto. It wasn't feigned. He was starving, the food was hearty and flavorful, and having his mouth full kept him from having to join in the conversation. 

It wasn't suspicious. Felix talked enough for both of them in-between mouthfuls. 

"If you don't mind my asking," the woman—whose name she told them was Greta—started, "Where are you headed?"

Felix waved away the concern like it hadn't occurred to him to be offended by the question. "We haven't the first clue," he responded cheerfully. 

Greta's eyebrows rose. "I beg your pardon?" 

"It's a terribly long story," Felix said, with a negligent shake of his head and a vague gesture with the slice of toast in his hand. "I shouldn't want to bore you with it, dear lady." 

She laughed. "We don't get many travelers round here these days. I surely don't mind hearing your tale." 

Hawk very carefully kept his attention on his plate. There was no lengthy tale. The one they'd offered to passersby on the road would take only seconds to tell.

"It started with the war, you see," Felix began, his voice taking on the tone of a storyteller who couldn't be happier to have an audience. "Javik here—" He slapped companionably at Hawk's upper arm. "—was forced to abandon his village when it was attacked by a small army of bandits. Terrible business, there. Brigands taking advantage of the chaos of the war to attack innocent people. It was run or die, so the villagers fled. Javik got separated from his family in the confusion and spent weeks trying to find them again." 

Here Hawk shot Felix a look. It was neutral, guarded in a way that might easily be construed as a warning to tread carefully on painful ground. In reality, he was a little baffled about where this was going and why Felix was bothering to spin this ridiculous tale in the first place. 

"Three weeks into his plight, he happened upon me fighting for my life against a band of templars," Felix continued blithely. "They'd stumbled into my campsite, decided that they were doing their Maker-given duty by murdering me, and tried their level best. Javik's never cared about mages or templars. People are people, he says. Anyway, he saw me struggling and helped me fight them off. After that, he offered to accompany me to safe haven, since I was easy prey, alone as I was."

Lying didn't sit well with Hawk. He didn't like misleading people on principle and he felt like it would be difficult to maintain too many lies. The story Felix was telling was overly complicated. Fake names, ludicrous scenarios, and too many opportunities for people who had lived through the war to point out where it was flat-out wrong. But Greta didn't accuse Felix of lying. She was staring at him with rapt fascination, caught up in the tale, her glassware washing forgotten. 

Felix took a deep drink from his tea, then frowned sadly. "Problem was, there was no safe haven. The fighting was everywhere. And with that hole in the sky..." 

"Maker be praised that's been closed," Greta murmured with heartfelt sincerity. "We've had enough trouble here with the Blight and the bad business with the Circle. When the Breach opened, we thought surely that that would be it, the village would finally be overrun with demons." 

There were too many things in that offering of commiseration that piqued Hawk's interest. He glanced at Felix, trying to express his desire to hear more, but Greta didn't give her newfound friend the opportunity to inquire further. She sighed, flapping her hand at him.

"Never mind me, dear," she told Felix. "Go on with your tale."

For his part, Felix didn't falter for a second. "We traveled, trying to keep one step ahead of the fighting, and when the Breach was closed, we went back to Javik's village." He frowned, as though gripped by a terrible memory, and his voice softened. "Or at least, we tried to. But the village was gone. Burned right to the ground. "His family was gone. His home destroyed. We couldn't stay there, so we left. And we've been on the road ever since."

It was a load of drivel. Hawk didn't believe for an instant that she would accept it as truth. Until Greta reached across the bar with a soft look in her eyes and took hold of his hand. "I'm so sorry for your loss, dear." 

"I..." What in the Void did he say to that? Hawk cleared his throat, trying and failing to drum up a smile. "Thank you." 

Greta pressed his hand for a moment, then withdrew to busy her hands with the glasses. "Is there nowhere either of you can go?" 

Felix sighed morosely. "There must be, mustn't there? So far we've found nothing, but surely..." He let his words trail off, sounding as though he was bravely attempting to be optimistic and faltering. 

Pursing her lips, Greta studied them both for a moment. "Perhaps," she started quietly. "Perhaps a place can be found for the two of you here."

Unable to stop himself, Hawk shot Felix a look. They couldn't stay here. They were too close to Redcliffe. Too close to the dark tower in the lake. And there were too many lies now about who they were.

"Oh," Felix exclaimed breathlessly. "No, my good woman, we couldn't possibly—"

"Nonsense," she cut him off with a sharp wave of her hand. "There are enough empty places around these parts for a pair of hardworking gentlemen to make a home." 

Felix had gotten them into this and he didn't look to be capable of getting them out of it. Hawk cleared his throat and put down his fork. "What about the trouble your village has had?" 

"You mean with the Circle and the Blight?" 

He nodded, wanting hear more of whatever she meant. But while he'd intended the question to suggest that they had enough trouble and didn't need to be taking in strays that might make it worse, Greta evidently thought he meant to imply that the village was too much a danger to _them_. 

She waved dismissive hand. “It’s not really the village that’s the problem. It’s the reputation of the area. That keeps people away more than the demons.” 

“Demons?” Felix echoed, mug halfway to his mouth. 

Her eyebrows rose. “You aren’t familiar with the story?” 

They exchanged a look. Before Felix could get them into more trouble, Hawk took the lead and shook his head. “I’m afraid not. We’re not from this area.”

“No?” She looked more surprised, not less. Hawk silently cursed himself for a fool for ever coming in here. “You sound as Fereldan as anyone around here.” She glanced over to Felix. “You, though, you’re not from Ferelden at all, are you?”

Felix shook his head. It seemed the safest answer.

“Tevinter, I’d wager,” Greta continued. “Or Nevarra, from the sound of that accent.”

Hawk watched Felix shoot him an uncertain glance, then open his mouth. Before he could try to respond, Greta added, “Oh, don’t you worry. I know they’re not all bad. Donal’s boy ran off and joined the Inquisition, used to send us letters about the people there before he got killed in the Western Approach. They’ve got a Tevinter magister there. An actual magister! Helping the people of Thedas.” She reached across the bar and touched Felix’s hand. “I’m not going to judge you for the place you were born. Not many others here will either.” 

It was obvious that Felix didn’t know what to say to that. He looked at Hawk, opened his mouth, closed it, then shifted his attention back to Greta. “You are too kind, my lady.” 

She smiled. “And you’re too flirtatious for your own good. Handsome man like you, smiling at a woman like that. You’ll have no want of company, here or elsewhere, I warrant.” 

Whatever Hawk might have said to press for more information was lost in another swell of irritation . Keeping his mouth closed, he bent his head and focused on finishing his breakfast. He tuned out Felix’s murmured response, tired of sitting there watch him play the debonair gallant. It was only when he heard the conversation turn back to the village and the area that Hawk started to pay attention again. 

“So what did happen here?” Felix was saying. “We passed a dock a short way back. It led out to that huge tower in the middle of the lake, I believe?” 

Greta nodded. “That’d be the old ferry to Kinloch Hold. Ferelden’s Circle of Magi.” 

Felix inhaled in surprise. “That was a Circle? It looked so...” 

Their host was nodding, as though she’d heard it all before. “Folks used to say it was a cursed place even before the mages came. Then Denerim needed someplace to send them and that’s what they picked. Really, it’s no wonder what happened to it.” 

“I’m afraid I never heard this story,” Felix prompted, sounding thoroughly fascinated.

“It was during the Blight. For a while, all we were hearing about was darkspawn coming out of the Wilds. Then word came that the mages went crazy over in the Circle, turned to blood magic and unleashed an army of demons. If it hadn’t been for the Wardens coming through, Maker only knows what might’ve happened to us if they’d gotten across the lake.” 

“Wardens?” Hawk hadn’t had any intention of joining the conversation, yet abruptly he found the word coming out of his mouth. “The Grey Wardens?” 

Felix was looking at him. Greta was nodding with a pleased smile.

“Just the same. One of them was a mage from this very Circle, Amell, I believe his name was. And King Alistair. Before he was king, of course. He was so young, the poor man. And injured from their fight with the demons.” 

Feeling the faint threads of pain that signified an imminent headache, Hawk rubbed firmly at the back of his neck, trying to make the muscles loosen. It wouldn’t help, he knew, but he couldn’t prevent himself from making the futile effort. Grey Wardens. The Blight. Like a shaft of sunlight punching through a crack in the wall and illuminating a dark room, knowledge rose from the murky depths of his mind. 

“The land further south of here,” he said, looking intently at Greta. “It’s black, ruined. That was the Blight, wasn’t it?” 

Her brows knit for just a moment before the expression cleared. “You mean Lothering?” She nodded. “Yes. After the Circle fell and the Wardens left, the darkspawn came and destroyed so much of the land. Nearly made it here before the Archdemon was killed.”

Lothering. Kinloch Hold. Redcliffe. Ferelden. It was like there was a badly drawn map unrolling in his head, the boundary lines blurry and the greens and browns of the terrain lumpy blobs. A bright blue splotch for the lake. A dot in the center for Kinloch Hold. A black swath near the southeastern edge of the lake. Another dot near the southern most point for Redcliffe. A question mark a short distance from the northeastern point of the lake for this village. Somewhere further east, Denerim. To the west, Orzammar. And all of it, Ferelden.

“And the demons?” Felix asked after a moment. “How are they still affecting the village? Weren’t they dealt with when the Wardens cleaned up the Circle?” 

Greta gave a helpless little shrug. “I’m not sure I understand how it works for certain, but it’s said that the Veil’s thin here. After the mess with the Circle and the Breach, demons show up in the countryside more than they used to. Every so often, one of them makes it into the village and has to be killed.” As if they might react fearfully to this news, she hastened to assure them. “It’s all very quickly done. We’ve gotten quite good at it over the years.” 

Hawk glanced over at Felix in time to meet his eyes and saw his thoughts reflected in the other man's gaze: _Where in the blighted Void are we?_ It sounded like a nightmare, though the prospect of demons didn't fill Hawk with paralyzing fear. Instead, he felt irritated and a tad weary about the whole thing, which led a bit more credence to Felix's insistence that he was a templar. Surely only a templar would hear the word _demons_ and feel nothing but aggravation.

"All we've met so far on the road are bandits," Felix said soothingly as he looked back to Greta. "I believe the village is safe for the foreseeable future."

Greta smiled. "Yes, I—" 

She was cut off as the door to the tavern crashed open. The noise startled all three of them and they turned as one toward the sound in time to see a young boy spill into the room. A young boy that looked surprisingly familiar to Hawk. It took him a moment to realize that it was the boy he'd glimpsed walking with an older man; by then, the boy had righted himself and was rushing forward, panic-stricken. 

"Greta!" He was shouting, eyes wide with fear. "Where's Danil?" 

Practically throwing her towel away from her, she rushed around the bar to comfort the child. "At the smithy, why? What's wrong, Kristof?"

"It's Da!" the little boy said, gasping for breath. "He needs help! Demons!"

Before he was quite conscious of what he was doing, Hawk was on his feet. "Where?" he demanded, ignoring the look of shock Felix was giving him. "Show me." 

The boy looked at him, first bewildered, then with dawning understanding as he caught sight of the sword belted at Hawk's hip. Nodding, he broke away from Greta and headed toward the door at a run. "This way."

"What are you—" Felix called, but Hawk simply darted after the boy, drawing his sword from its scabbard. Something else followed in the tone of a curse, though Hawk was already passing through the door and couldn't hear it properly. 

Halfway across the square, Felix caught up to him, his staff in his hand and a perplexed expression on his face. “What are you doing?” he demanded, making an attempt to catch Hawk’s arm as they hurried along after the boy. 

Hawk shook him off, unwilling to be deterred. “The boy needs help.”

“Yes, I imagine he does,” Felix said in a voice that was obviously meant to be conciliatory. He lowered it then so Kristof wouldn’t hear him. “Are you certain we’re the ones best suited to do so?”

“You don’t have to do this,” Hawk returned without judgment. “I’ll take care of it.”

Felix snorted. “Of course. I’ll just let my—” He stumbled over the term. “ _You_ run off to fight demons without me. Yes! What a splendid idea!”

He was reacting, not thinking. If he were thinking, he probably wouldn’t have just bolted out of the tavern like all the shades in the Fade were after him. If he were thinking, he wouldn’t be haring off without the first idea of what he was rushing into and whether he could actually handle it. But if he started thinking, he would second guess himself and get in the way of his instincts. Instincts that had driven a knife unerringly into a bandit’s throat and fought off a bunch of others as though he’d been doing it all of his life. He couldn’t afford to dither in uncertainty if another person was in danger and he couldn’t afford to let himself get in his own way. 

And because he wasn’t thinking, he reacted to Felix’s comment without considering his words or what he was revealing. “I’m sure Greta wouldn’t mind the company.” 

From the corner of his eye, he saw Felix stare at him, evidently taken aback by the snideness of his tone. “What?” 

He didn’t respond. Instead, as he watched Kristof dart out away from the streets and into a nearby field. The boy ducked under the rails of the fence that bordered it without slowing too much. As Hawk approached a few moments later, he simply laid a hand on the top rail and vaulted over it without breaking stride. It was only after he’d come down and heard Felix huff behind him that he realized what he’d done. He didn’t stop, however, and after about half a minute, Felix caught up with him. 

“If you think your little display of athleticism is getting you out of this argument,” Felix began as he came abreast of him once more. It was actually a little impressive. Instead of panting for breath from their run, he had enough of it left to argue as he ran. “You’re in for a surprise.” 

_Clearly I’m not the only athletic one among us_ , Hawk thought on a thread of faint amusement. Still, he didn't look over at him and he didn't rise to the bait Felix was dangling his way. "At the moment, I'm more concerned about the demons we're running into than who's winning an argument." 

"Perhaps if we weren't running into demons, you might be better able to focus," Felix grumbled under his breath. He didn't press the point, however; a small fact that Hawk chalked up to a win. 

Then it didn't matter, as they crested a rise and saw Kristof waiting for them, pointing down into a small depression where a man—Hawk recognized him too—was trying to hold a large, fiery apparition off with a shovel. From the tattered trousers, the scorch marks, and the blood soaking one of his sleeves, he wasn't doing a particularly admirable job of it. 

"Stay here," Hawk barked to Kristof, darting past him down the hill.

He drew his sword as he ran, the ring of metal echoing out into the air. It was loud enough to catch the demon's attention. It turned its baleful eyes in his direction, hissing a challenge. Beyond it, Hawk glimpsed the farmer struggling to his feet and heard Felix behind him yelling for the man to run. After that, he didn't have time to worry about what anyone else was doing.

Barreling into the creature, Hawk ducked a swipe of sharp, burning claws and slashed at its mid-section. It lurched back with a growl, then shrieked as its arm was suddenly coated in ice. He jerked out of the way of a gout of flame, then rammed the sword into its gut and cut it in half with a hard wrench of his sword. It screamed, disintegrating into a cloud of ash and Hawk smiled, a fierce baring of his teeth.

" _Duck!_ " Felix shouted frantically, a moment before a sizzling crack filled his ears.

Stunned, Hawk wasn't aware of the blow until his head cleared and he realized that he was on his knees, sword gripped so tightly that it made his hand ache, nerves jangled and back screaming a protest. He shook his head, briefly wondering if it was his imagination that the ground seemed to shake with the motion, then twisted around despite the pain in his back when he heard the boom of a fireball exploding against something solid. 

"Get up!" Felix was shouting, the sound coming from behind him until it was abruptly at his ear. Beside him now, Felix grabbed onto his arm with one hand and launched another fireball with a wave of his staff. "Hurry up before it hits you again." 

Yanking him onto his feet, Felix immediately released him and brought up a shimmering barrier just in time to deflect what looked—impossibly—like a coil of lightning. Blinking the afterimage from his eyes, Hawk realized that that was what it was. A whip woven of electricity and wielded by a hulking, armored monstrosity that was lumbering their way. 

"Pride demon," Hawk wheezed, shaking feeling back into his numb hand. "Dispel that electricity!" 

Felix stared at him. " _How_?" he demanded. "I don't remember the spell!" 

"Then use fire!" 

Not waiting for a response, Hawk darted around the edge of the barrier and charged the thing. It swung the whip, but this time he was ready for it and dropped down underneath the arc of it, skidding forward on his knees a few paces before he was up again. Adrenaline kept him moving, pushed back the complaints of a body not prepared for this level of activity. Fire exploded against the front of the creature, the heat of the flames hot against his face as he dodged to the side of it and drove his sword into its unprotected flank.

The demon bellowed but didn't go down and lurched toward him. The crackle of electricity slid past his face and Hawk jerked backward out of its way. Off to the side, it sounded as though Felix was cursing the thing and a moment later ice slicked it from broad shoulders straight to the ground. It laughed, a deep, booming sound that set Hawk's teeth on edge and shook itself free, sending him flying with an accidental kick when he ventured too close.

Stumbling backward, he watched it round on Felix with the whip. He could see the faint shimmer of the barrier still in place, but how long it might last was anyone's guess. Hawk swore, pushed himself up out of his ungainly sprawl back to his feet, and forced himself into motion again. The demon lifted its hand and something deep within Hawk reacted.

It was like the sharp, breathless shock of a blade sliding against exposed bone. He felt it radiate through his body, a frisson of white-noise that made him ache to his very core. In front of him, the demon staggered and Felix yelped. The sound seemed a mixture of panic and surprise and it went straight to whatever instinct allowed Hawk to wield a sword with any skill at all. 

He didn't think as he threw himself at the demon, causing it to lose its balance. As it fell forward, Hawk grabbed at the edge of a bony protrusion and hauled himself upward. It tried to right itself, the narrow opportunity quickly closing, and Hawk wrapped both hands around the sword's hilt and drove it down between the thing's shoulder blades. The point hit bone, scraped and jolted to the side, but he hung onto it as it spasmed beneath him and wrenched itself backward, shrieking.

Sawing the blade back and forth, trying to get it free without losing his hold on it as blood sprayed up from the wound, Hawk felt it give, drew it back, and rammed it in again. The demon uttered an earsplitting scream, then crumpled forward, taking Hawk with it. He rode it down, grip slipping in the blood, and tumbled free when the jarring impact knocked him off. Scrambling up onto his knees, already pulling the knife from its sheath at his back—probably useless but better than nothing—he watched as it dissolved into dust.

"Felix?" he called, shoving himself up and staggering over to retrieve his sword from where it had fallen. "All right?" 

Felix was standing a short distance away, irritably flexing his fingers and scowling. He didn't respond to the question. He didn't even seem to _hear_ it. 

"Felix!" Hawk said sharply, reaching him and giving his shoulder a shake. "What's the problem?"

Blinking, Felix finally focused on him. His expression of affronted disgust didn't change. "It did something to me."

"What?" 

He shook his head. "I don't know, but..." He made a gesture and held up his hand for Hawk to see it, who obediently looked and didn't know what he was seeing. "The fire," Felix prompted. 

"What fire?"

"That's my point," Felix snapped. "I can't summon it." 

For an instant, Hawk just looked blankly at Felix's hand, then twisted around to eye the remains of the demon. There wasn't much left to tell that there had ever been a demon, save for scorched earth and some burning grass. He looked back to Felix in concern. 

"Were you hit by it?"

"No." 

There were no brilliant insights forthcoming in the silence that fell between them. Eventually, Hawk shook his head. "A mage can't just _lose_ his magic. Maybe it, I don't know, cast some kind of spell on you.” It seemed as plausible as any other explanation his mind offered in explanation. “Once we get these folks back to town, we’ll see if someone can point us toward a healer." 

Felix looked a little dubious, but finally he nodded his assent to the plan. "How are you?" 

"Sore," Hawk admitted, then exhaled ruefully. " _Very_ sore. I feel like the blighted thing fell on me." 

“Perhaps we ought to get _you_ to the healer.”

That was probably true, but Hawk was more concerned about Felix and the man they’d rescued from the demon than himself. He could walk. He could move. He didn’t feel blood sliding down his skin. He was just sore. It was a bone-deep, sharp throb that didn’t seem to abate even when he held himself still. _The whip_ , he assumed, unable to recall ever having been struck by lightning before. _It’s because I was struck by the whip_.

“Later,” he dismissed the idea, waving his hand in a gesture that ended with him lightly clasping Felix’s upper arm. “Can you walk?” 

Felix gave him such a withering glare that Hawk let him go and took a step backward. “I’m hardly that fragile, Hawk.” Sniffing disdainfully, he secured his staff and started toward the farmer and son. Over his shoulder he called back to Hawk, “Try to keep up, would you? You’re too heavy to carry.” 

* * *

As much as he might have wished for discretion, there was no keeping their actions a secret from the village. Kristof ran off to alert the healer and by the time they arrived at the old man’s house with the boy’s father, there was a small crowd of curious villagers clustered around the place. News traveled fast and they wanted to make certain that Harid was alive and well. And when it became apparent that some travelers had saved him and killed the demons, the crowd only grew. 

Hawk plastered on a patient, friendly facade, but inwardly, he wanted to scream. They couldn’t afford word of their little misadventure to spread beyond the village and tried to downplay the entire thing whenever someone pressed him with a question. The same couldn’t be said for Kristof, who exaggerated the encounter with all the enthusiasm of a small child who’d watched his father narrowly escape an untimely demise. Harid didn’t help matters, insisting to all who would listen that the strangers were heroes. _Tragic_ heroes, once Greta got involved and started relaying that idiotic story Felix told her. And Felix, who should have known better than to fan the flames of their newfound fame, was right there in the thick of it, holding court in the tavern and embellishing miniscule details until Hawk was certain someone was going to try to set the whole fiasco to song. 

It was embarrassing and dangerous and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it.

They’d been checked over by the healer after Harid had been patched up and pronounced fit to return home, provided he took it easy for the next couple of days and took his healing tonics at the prescribed times. Hawk had a long, unpleasant looking welt across his back from the demon’s whip, but the skin hadn’t torn or been burned. Still, the healer had given him some kind of foul-smelling concoction for the pain Hawk described and sent him on his way. Felix hadn’t been injured at all and had only received a conciliatory pat on the shoulder when he complained about his inability to use his magic. It would clear up on its own, the healer had assured him with a patient smile, echoing Hawk’s earlier guess that the demon had cast a spell on him that would fade over time. 

Examination complete, a well-meaning Greta had ushered them back to the tavern to rest and there they’d been for the rest of the day. She’d offered them complimentary food and drink in thanks for risking their lives saving a family friend and they’d graciously, though sparingly, accepted. 

While Felix gave away too much information, Hawk tried to get some of his own from the near constant stream of curious villagers who were eager to speak with him. By and large, he was successful. He learned a bit more about the history of the area, though the stories he heard about the Circle of Magi tended to conflict from person to person. What he gleaned from it all was that its fall was a monumental disaster and it devastated the prosperity of the region. There were neither mages nor templars there now, the former no longer bound to the Circles and the latter practically wiped out during the catastrophe with the Breach. 

Casual inquiries into the Inquisition revealed that no one had firsthand knowledge of the Inquisitor or his people, but they’d all heard second, third, and fourth-hand accounts that they were happy to pass along. It was a military organization, though it seemed bound to no country that anyone could discern. Its headquarters were stationed in the Frostbacks and neither Ferelden nor Orlais could claim it as their own. Its agents were numerous and its army a force to be reckoned with, but it didn’t appear to have expansionist designs and the Inquisitor—a Dalish elf, people kept telling him, like that detail was of immense importance—appeared to be more interested in helping people with their problems than in using his power for his own gain. An off-hand remark about the Inquisition's commander brought a confusing account that Hawk couldn't quite follow: he was stationed at the Circle, he was stationed at another Circle, he annulled the Circle, he didn't annul the Circle, didn't Olin's daughter's cousin know him? It left him no more knowledgeable about the man and his templar history than he'd started and was absolutely no help in determining whether there was a cure for this potential lyrium problem or not. 

Eventually, Hawk's low-grade headache got so bad that his eyes seemed to throb in time with his pulse and it was starting to hurt to sit there in the chair. He tried to ignore it, but neither problem abated and only seemed to grow worse as the minutes passed. Not wishing for anyone to see him in pain, he finally made the decision to excuse himself from the common room and rose to his feet. Two tables away, Felix caught the movement and glanced in his direction. For an instant they made eye contact and Hawk read a question there. He subtly shook his head, then made his good evenings to the people sitting at his table and headed toward the door that would take him to the stairs. 

Once it had closed behind him, concealing him from view of the patrons, Hawk leaned heavily against the wall. The stone was cool under his hand; tipping his head forward, he pressed his forehead to it and took a few deep, steadying breaths. His body ached, he felt nauseous, and the simple act of walking out of the room made him so dizzy that he knew that getting up the stairs was going to be a trial. But he couldn’t stand there in the hallway forever and he didn’t want to chance anyone coming in behind him and seeing him carrying on like an invalid. 

Painstakingly, Hawk pushed away from the wall and trudged up the stairs. He was breathing hard by the time he reached the top and sweating profusely, but he got there without incident. After a brief rest there, slumped against the wall trying to even out his breaths, Hawk finished the journey to the room Greta had given them for the night. It was dark inside, illuminated only by the dim, ambient light of the night sky coming in through the window, but Hawk didn’t head for the candles on the table. He shut the door and made his way toward the bed, sighing in relief as the darkness and the silence began to dull the edge of his headache. 

His hands were shaking as he stripped himself of his clothes, slowing his progress, and he hadn’t the patience to fold any of it into a neat pile somewhere out of the way. It littered the floor, each piece lying on the floor where he dropped it, marking his path across the room. Finally, he got it all off and climbed naked into the bed. The sheets were a little scratchy against his clammy skin, but he didn’t care. It felt good to be off his feet and out of his clothes. Belatedly, he remembered the healing tonics Felix had in his bag, inconveniently located on the other side of the room, but the prospect of getting up to get them was too daunting for the meager relief they would offer him. 

Closing his eyes, Hawk resolved to sleep it off. Unfortunately, that was easier decided than accomplished. He rode the waves of pain like a beleaguered vessel, buffeted by sharp pangs of agony that radiated up his spine into his head and the occasional slippery twist of nausea. If this was the life he'd lived prior to whatever had happened to him, he thought miserably, perhaps it was a relief to forget about it. He couldn't imagine living with this for years, and if that was what awaited him, he wasn't certain he was going to be able to do it. 

Like a skillful thief, exhaustion crept up on him, sliding in through the cracks of his dark thoughts. And between one throb of pain and another, it struck and pulled him down into the blissful nothing of sleep.  

* * *

 

As it turned out, the healer had been correct. Whatever spell the demon had cast on him wasn't permanent. As the afternoon lengthened into evening, Felix could feel the magic sparking back to life within him. It'd been an uncomfortable sensation to be without it; he hadn't even known that there was anything to feel _with_ it until suddenly it was gone and every movement he made felt leaden and the world seemed a dull, lifeless affair. He tried to make up for it by talking to anyone who would listen. And after their impromptu heroics, there were plenty of people clamoring to do just that.

He could feel Hawk's silent disapproval as he launched into a particularly extravagant retelling of their deeds, but Felix ignored him and Hawk didn't breach the circle of his attentive audience to get him to stop. In fact, Hawk didn't talk to him at all.

It didn't strike Felix as odd until much later, after his magic had returned in full and he was no longer attempting to distract himself from its absence. Hawk hadn't said anything, had barely moved from his seat a few tables over near the fire. Felix tried to remember when the last time was that he'd seen him get up in search of a refill of his drink and couldn't. Once or twice, he tried to catch his eye, but Hawk wasn't paying much attention to him by then and didn't look up.

Anxious concern began to churn within Felix's stomach. Was he all right? Had he been injured more than he'd let on? It was a possibility. Hawk wasn't proving himself the type to draw attention to what he perceived as his weaknesses. Of course, there was another possibility for his distance, but it seemed too preposterous and foolish even to contemplate it. However, the fact remained that Hawk _had_ been disgruntled about the way Felix had spoken with Greta upon their arrival that morning. Could he simply be angry?

Felix knew that his questions could be easily answered by going over and talking with Hawk himself, but they were still the focal point of too much attention. Whatever was troubling him, Felix knew Hawk wouldn't discuss it within earshot of the villagers. Which meant holding his questions until they retired for the night. It seemed like a sound plan, until Hawk left the room before him and Felix was too deep into the middle of a made-up story about his life prior to meeting _Javik_ to cut it off and accompany him. A silent glance—in which so many things were attempted to be communicated that he was certain that some of it got lost in translation—was all he got and he had to be content with that.

An hour later, Felix extricated himself from his crowd of adoring fans, bid them all a goodnight, and retreated from the common room. He was tired and the prospect of lying down in a real bed again was a tantalizing one, but he was just as eager to speak with Hawk as he was to rest.

“Hawk,” he was already saying as he opened the door to their shared room. “Are you—?”

Darkness and silence greeted him.

Brow knitting, Felix called a tongue of flame to the palm of his hand, taking a second to revel in the way the magic once again flowed through him like a river of sparkling light, and stepped into the room, letting the door close behind him. And promptly tripped over a boot. Hawk’s boot.

It was then that he noticed the trail of cast off clothing, and Hawk’s sword dropped haphazardly along the way, leading toward the bed. With no one to witness it, Felix allowed a fond smile to curve his mouth and made his way over. A tiny flourish of his hand transferred the flame in his palm to the wick of the candle on the bedside table and in its light, Felix could see the pallor of Hawk’s skin. It stole the smile from his face.

“Foolish man,” he murmured softly, as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “Why did you say nothing?”

Asleep, Hawk could neither hear him nor answer. It wasn’t necessary anyway. Felix knew why he hadn’t said anything. His thrice-damned pride. And, he suspected rather irritably, Hawk had been trying to be considerate to his sudden loss of magic. As if Felix couldn’t worry about himself _and_ Hawk at the same time.

Sighing, Felix brushed a few strands of sweat-soaked curls off of Hawk’s forehead and set his palm lightly against it. His skin was cool and clammy, not hot with fever, which he supposed was a tiny blessing. Rising carefully so as to not wake Hawk from what looked like a deep, and much needed, slumber, Felix made his way over to the table on the far side of the room.

There was a pitcher of water sitting atop it, next to a bowl and a cloth for washing. A touch of frost cooled the water, though before he made use of it, Felix quickly undressed. His clothes didn’t get thrown on the floor like an uncouth savage, but rather were folded neatly and set in a pile on an empty section of the table. Then he poured some of the water into the bowl, wet the cloth, and padded on bare feet back to the bed.

With extraordinary care not to wake him, Felix washed the sweat from Hawk’s face. He washed what he could of his throat and neck too, though it was there that he stopped. He didn’t want to risk pushing his luck further. Hawk still slept and Felix aimed to ensure that that didn’t change. Tossing the cloth onto the table, he got carefully into bed, pausing only a moment to lean over and leave a soft kiss on Hawk’s forehead.

A thought extinguished the candle, and as Felix lay back against the pillows, he searched around beneath the covers for Hawk’s hand. Finding it, he twined their fingers loosely together, lending Hawk’s subconscious the tactile proof of his presence. Perhaps it would help him get through the night without nightmares.

Yawning, Felix closed his eyes. Already he could feel himself sinking into sleep. Tomorrow, he told himself, tomorrow they would... They would _reconnect_. And he would prove to Hawk that he wasn’t going anywhere. Just the thought of how he meant to do that made him smile, and as he drifted off, he murmured in a sleepy slur, “Goodnight, _amatus_.”


	10. Chapter 10

When Hawk woke the next morning, it was to sunlight streaming in through the window, a strange sort of hollow lassitude where the pain of the last night had been, and an empty bed. He knew before he opened his eyes that Felix wasn't there, the bed wasn't so big that two people could lay together on it without brushing against one another, but he still felt a twinge of something that twisted uneasily in his gut when he glanced over and failed to see the familiar sight of disheveled dark hair. There was an indentation in the pillow and the blankets on that side were a rumpled mess, so he knew that the other man had been there during the night. Where he'd gone, however, was indeterminable.

Cautiously, Hawk levered himself onto his elbow. No throbbing ache in his head accompanied the movement and he didn't break into a cold sweat. Last night's nausea seemed to be a thing of the past as well. His body moved a bit sluggishly, as if it was in recovery from an illness and had lost a considerable portion of its strength, but near as he could tell, that was the only after-effect of the sickness that lingered.

A look around the room revealed no clues as to where Felix might have gone. Hawk could see his own clothes where he vaguely recalled dropping them last night, marking a straight path toward the bed. Felix's clothes were gone, though considering he was gone, that didn't come as much of a surprise. Hawk couldn't imagine him sauntering down into the tavern naked.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, feeling very much out of sorts and like he needed a bath. There was going to be the first order of business after ascertaining Felix's whereabouts, he decided. Bathing. If the tavern didn't have facilities, no doubt a villager could point him in the direction of a stream or pond where he might take a dunk.

With a sigh, he coaxed himself into sitting up fully. When he continued not to experience ill-effects from the movement, he reached for the blankets to throw them back out of the way. Before he could do so, the door opened and Felix came in carrying a tray bearing plates and cups. The smell of fire-warmed meat and fresh-baked bread wafted over to him, prompting an unsubtle growl of his stomach.

Felix, momentarily preoccupied with trying to quietly close the door, glanced up at the sound and grinned cheerfully. “Well, good morning to you too.”

Half a dozen things Hawk wanted to say got tangled up in his throat, jostling for the privilege of being spoken, and left him doing little more than staring at Felix in surprise.

Unperturbed by Hawk’s silence, Felix finished with the door and sauntered over, looking rather proud of himself. As he neared the bed, he hefted the tray in order to draw Hawk’s eyes toward it. The tactic worked. Hawk glanced down and saw the generous portions of food laid out neatly on the plates. Care had obviously gone into the arrangement, though whether it had been Felix’s hands that had done the work or Greta’s was unclear. Looking up, he saw Felix watching him with an expression that was mostly curious and faintly worried.

There was a question forming on his tongue, Hawk could see it in Felix’s eyes, and he could guess at what it would be. Perhaps it was foolish of him, but he didn’t want to have to speak aloud the uncertainty he’d felt when he’d woken to find Felix gone. It was better to head him off than to attempt a face-saving lie.

“The bed is colder without you,” Hawk said mildly, both truth and explanation for Felix walking in and catching him about to rise.

It appeared to do the trick. The minute creases at the corners of Felix’s eyes smoothed out and his smile returned as bright as it had been when he’d come through the door. “If I were in bed, there would be no one to bring us breakfast,” he returned, nodding for Hawk to settle back and give him room.

Hawk complied, scooting backward and fussing with the pillow until he was leaning comfortably against the wall. “What is all of this?” he asked as he arranged the sheet around his lap, looking once more to the tray.

Sitting down in the space Hawk had made for him, Felix carefully set the tray down between them and made himself comfortable. The concern resurfaced in the subtle twist of his mouth as he gave Hawk a look.

“You were not well last night.” It was softly spoken, but Hawk still heard the mildest of rebukes running beneath it.

“No,” he agreed easily, offering a reassuring upward quirk of his lips. “But I am better this morning.”

And that was true. His condition had vastly improved with sleep. He still moved cautiously, wary for another flare-up, but the longer nothing happened, the greater his confidence grew that the latest episode was over.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Felix asked, his tone more confused than accusatory.

“What would telling you have done but worry you?” Reaching over their as yet untouched breakfast, Hawk brushed his fingers over the back of Felix’s hand. It was meant as both comfort and reassurance, though something inexplicable kept him from simply taking that hand in his. “There was naught to be done save bear it until it passed.”

Potions and salves didn’t ease the pain. Magic only seemed to make it worse. Hawk wasn’t feigning bravery in the face of someone he wished to impress, there simply wasn’t anything they could do about it. Life continued on whether he was suffering or not and he wasn’t about to drag Felix down into it with him. His personal feelings toward him notwithstanding, there were plenty of other problems to contend with. Hawk would not make his infirmity one of them if he could help it.

“I might have comforted you,” Felix returned in the faintest, mildest chastisement he had yet heard.

Retracting his hand and letting it fall to his lap, Hawk rubbed his palm over the blanket covering his thighs. It was of good quality, soft and plush, not yet threadbare from use. The village was neither large nor rich, but it was clear that Greta’s tavern did a steady business, enough to ensure that the food she served was fresh and plentiful and the rooms she offered were furnished well.

“You were enjoying yourself downstairs,” he replied evenly. “I did not wish to cut the revelry short.”

Felix’s voice took on a subtly sharper note and there at the corners of his mouth was the tiniest pinch. “You are more important than revelry, Hawk.”

It was too early to argue and quite frankly, Hawk had no wish to fight with Felix at all. Certainly not about something like this. “Felix,” he murmured gently. “It is no matter. Leave it.”

Evidently, Felix didn’t agree with him. “You thought me interested in Greta.”

Hawk shrugged, careful to keep his voice as casual as his gesture. “It seemed you were.”

Something about the way Felix was looking at him suggested that he wasn’t willing to fully accept that answer and drop it. Hawk returned the look as blandly as possible. He hadn’t enjoyed sitting there while Felix flirted with her, but he wasn’t angry about it any longer and didn't feel like revisiting the experience.

"You catch more flies with honey than vinegar," Felix said after a moment's silence. "I wanted information and thought a friendly, attractive face would win it more easily than an unpleasant disposition. I had no interest in bedding her."

_Let it go_ , Hawk told himself firmly. Unfortunately, his mouth had other ideas and ignored his brain entirely. "We barely know anything about one another," he found himself saying, picking at it the way he would an itchy scab. "It isn't unreasonable to think that--"

Felix snorted, cutting him off. "Do you wish to bed her?"

It was such a preposterous question that Hawk blinked. "What?"

"Greta." Felix waved toward the door with a flick of his wrist. "Or any of these people. It doesn't have to be her."

"No." Hawk shook his head, bewildered. "Why would you think that?"

"We barely know anything about one another," Felix repeated his words back to him in a lofty tone that Hawk knew he hadn't used when he'd said it. "It isn't unreasonable to think that you might fancy someone else."

That was disturbingly close to exactly what he'd been about to say. "Of course it is." He frowned, halfway to irritated that Felix could doubt his feelings. "I want _you_. Have I given you cause to doubt that?"

His answer came not in words but in the sharp rise of Felix's eyebrows. Saying nothing, he simply gave Hawk a look. A very pointed, very exasperated look.

It was clear what the message was. Hawk wasn't a stupid man. And perhaps it was hypocritical to question Felix's feelings when he was so secure in his own. But _he_ hadn't been flirting with other people. Felix had. "I wasn't flirting with the barkeeper," he muttered under his breath, hearing how petulant it sounded and choosing to ignore it.

Rolling his eyes, Felix heaved a heavy sigh. "Oh honestly, Hawk. I smiled at her. I made neither promises nor suggestions."

Hawk couldn't deny the truth of that. Felix hadn't made any blatant offers or suggestions to her or to anyone else. It still didn't sit well with him and he wasn't entirely certain why. Something in his forgotten past, perhaps? It was possible. _Anything_ was possible given how little he remembered. But he wasn't keen on allowing his missing memory to become an excuse for everything he felt or did. That seemed entirely too disingenuous.

Frown deepening, Hawk's gaze slipped away from Felix and settled sightlessly on the blanket. It troublesome how little he knew himself. Was he a jealous man, prone to irrationality whenever his partner happened to glance at another? If he was, that impulse was going to need to curbed. He didn't relish being that sort of man and he didn't believe Felix deserved having to deal with such behavior. And if he wasn't prone to bouts of unnecessary jealousy, did that mean something had happened in the past to make him suspicious of Felix's actions? No one was perfect, he knew that without the benefit of his memories, but thinking of Felix in such a poor light didn't sit well with him either.

_Maker, but this is a mess_ , he thought sourly, reaching up to run his hand through his hair. Felix caught his wrist before he managed it, however, and he glanced up at him, startled by the touch.

"Foolish man," Felix said softly, shaking his head. It could have been chastisement, but there was fondness in his voice instead of censure, and when he tugged Hawk's hand away from its aborted trajectory, it was to bring it to his mouth and kiss the knuckles. "It's you that I want."

He dusted another kiss across the back of Hawk's hand, then lowered it from his mouth. As he was doing so, Felix smiled in a decidedly impish way. "And if you truly believe me to be so shallow as to have my head turned simply at the sight of an attractive face, I suggest you look in the mirror. How I'd notice anyone with you lurking around is beyond me."

The sentiment was reassuring and appreciated, but Hawk still shot him a skeptical glance at that bit of flattery nonsense. Mirrors weren't exactly in abundance on the road, though there had been one back in Redcliffe. He knew what he looked like and it was nothing like Felix. The message behind the glance must have been clearly received, because Felix snorted and waved an imperious hand at the tray sitting untouched between them.

"Eat your breakfast, you ignorant lout." Despite the insult, Felix's voice was mild and there was a smile teasing at the corners of his mouth. "A lesson is clearly in order."

"A lesson?" Hawk echoed, arching a brow.

"Breakfast," Felix demanded, picking up a biscuit and pushing it into his hand. From the way he was looking at him, Hawk had the distinct impression that he would have thrown it at him if he wasn't so insistent about eating it.

Dutifully, Hawk took a deliberate bite of the biscuit under Felix's watchful eye. It wasn't until he'd swallowed it that Felix finally turned his attention to seeing to his own breakfast. Once he was out from under such scrutiny, he allowed himself to relax and set to his meal with more enthusiasm.

The tension and uneasiness slowly bled out of Hawk as they ate. The silence was companionable, broken here and there by the occasional comment or brief conversation. Felix told him a bit of minor gossip he'd collected as he'd stood near the bar waiting for Greta to bring out the food. It was trivial, something about one of the farmers having an issue with his barn's roof, but Hawk listened as if he was actually telling him something important. And perhaps in some respects, he was. If the town’s gossip centered on mundane concerns like construction and crops, then it was probably safe to say that they hadn’t been alerted to the possibility of a rogue templar and mage passing through the area. Or of a ruffian who assaulted blacksmiths in Redcliffe.

With no hint of suspicion circulating the village, they could relax. At least for a little while. And a bit of relaxation was precisely what Hawk thought they both needed. He knew that it wouldn’t last, their time on the elven couple’s farm had taught him not to grow complacent about their safety, but after the urgency of the flight from Redcliffe, it was a welcome respite. That they could eat breakfast as leisurely as this, taking time to enjoy their meal and make idle conversation, was a gift that Hawk would think back on with longing once they were on the road again.

“Have you any plans for today?” Hawk asked, as Felix collected their empty plates and got up to set the tray on the table. It was equal parts curiosity and courtesy. He had some half-formed notions of his own, largely centered around resupplying and seeing about purchasing a few extra sets of clothes, but none of it was so important that he would insist upon Felix abandoning his own ideas to help him.

“Is that a trick question?” Felix asked lightly from the other side of the room, where he was hunched over and rummaging absently through his pack.

Hawk snorted softly. “Hardly. I thought perhaps to visit the shops and craftsmen today. See if I might—”

A bark of laughter interrupted him. “You aren’t going to punch another one, are you?” Felix shot him a teasing grin over his shoulder. “Every man needs a hobby, yes, I know, but I question the benefits of being run out of every settlement we might wish to visit.”  

“It was _one_ time,” Hawk pointed out, groaning softly in exasperation. “And if you must know, it wasn’t until he mentioned you that I hit him.”

“So it’s _my_ fault you have no control over your violent tendencies, is it?” Laughing, Felix straightened up, dropped the pack, and made his way back over to the bed. “Or are such displays your version of a mating dance?”

That got a huff of laughter out of him. “It would be a terribly ineffective dance if you were not there to witness it.”

Leaning over the side of the bed, Felix plucked the mug of tea from Hawk’s hand. His smile turned slyly suggestive. “Are you offering to dance for me, Hawk?”

He laughed openly at that. “Maker, no. Not if the purpose is to entice you.” He tipped his head sideways in mock consideration. “Though I suppose if you wish to be repelled, I could give it a try.”

Putting the mug down on the side table, Felix turned to Hawk and gave him a rather unexpectedly critical once-over, absently tapping at his chin with his forefinger. Hawk met the stare with a perplexed look of his own. When an answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, he lifted his eyebrows.

“What?” he asked.

Felix made an imperious gesture toward the bed. “Lie down. On your stomach, please.”

He wasn’t certain what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that. “Sorry?”

Sighing, Felix impatiently rotated his index finger in a circle. “Turn over. And get comfortable.” When Hawk still didn’t move to comply with the instruction, he added, “You inquired about my plans for today. This is one of them.”

As far as he could determine, he had two options. He could do what Felix asked or he could stubbornly insist on an explanation first. The simplest was just to do what he was told. Rolling over, Hawk sprawled out on the bed, still mostly covered by the sheet, and made himself comfortable. With his arms folded under the pillow, he leaned the right side of his face against it, keeping his eyes on Felix.

“And what is the purpose of this particular plan, exactly?” he inquired.

Felix didn’t answer. He just knelt on the bed, then shuffled around on his knees until he was straddling Hawk’s hips. The blankets that he'd pulled up to his shoulders once he'd gotten comfortable got pushed down to his hips. He could hear Felix rubbing his hands together, but the position didn't allow him to see what he was doing. A vaguely herbal scent that hadn't been there a moment before suddenly filled the air.

"Felix, honestly, what—" Two unnaturally warm, oddly slippery hands settled firmly against his shoulder blades, then dug in as Felix pressed the heels of them into the muscle. Suddenly, the purpose of his plan became rather self-evident. "Oh."

It probably shouldn't have been possible for a simple sniff to sound smug, but Felix managed it admirably. "Yes, _oh_. You're impossibly tense, Hawk." There was determination in the way he kneaded at Hawk's shoulders, so much so that it actually hurt a little. But Hawk weathered it without complaint, recognizing that a modicum of discomfort now would give way to decreased tightness in his muscles later. "Have you considered the possibility that it might be contributing to your illness?"

The truth was that he hadn't. Hawk considered the legitimacy of the suggestion for a moment, then hummed a note of dismissal. "If it is, there is little I can do about it. We don't exactly lead the most relaxing life."

A moment of silence stretched out between them then as Felix continued working on Hawk's shoulders. Whatever oil it was he'd used to coat his hands made them glide smoothly over Hawk's skin, soothing when they weren't attacking knots of tension, and the warmth was renewed whenever it started to fade, further aiding his body to relax. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, merely meditative, and Hawk, understanding that Felix was thinking over what he said, refrained from saying anything further in order to give him time to do it. Eventually, as he shifted his focus from Hawk's shoulders to his neck, Felix offered, "Perhaps we ought to work on that."

It was hardly something about which to argue. Hawk breathed out a soft chuckle. "I'm open to suggestions on that score."

"Why don't we stay here for a few days?"

Despite every reason why he shouldn't, Felix sounded serious. Hawk gave him a minute to see if he was making some sort of obscure joke, but when he said nothing further, he realized that it was exactly what it sounded like.

"We can't stay here," he objected, grunting softly as Felix dug his fingers hard into the muscles connecting his neck to his shoulders. "That is madness."

"Why?" Felix sounded curious, not argumentative, but the pressure of his fingers belied that casual tone. "This village is far enough from the main road that it doesn't see a steady stream of visitors."

"And you would know this how?"

"I asked," Felix returned bluntly. His grip tightened. "And before you start haranguing me about the need for secrecy, I didn't phrase it like a bumbling nitwit. I asked numerous questions about the village and its surroundings while I waited for breakfast. I'm simply capable of putting together a puzzle from the pieces made available to me."

There was no doubt about Felix's cleverness. Still, it was alarmingly reckless to place their safety in an assumption borne from gossip and curiosity. At least, so it seemed to Hawk. His instincts urged him to keep running, to put an ocean's worth of distance between them and the people giving chase. _We'll never be safe as long as they pursue us_ , he thought unhappily. _We can't stop. I can't protect us if we stop._

Their protection didn't rest solely on Hawk's shoulders. Intellectually, he knew that. Felix had proven himself just as capable in the field with his magic as Hawk was with a blade in his hand. Perhaps he was even more capable than Hawk, considering how powerful his magic was proving itself to be now that he was gaining a better understanding of how to wield it. But that didn't prevent Hawk from feeling as though it was his responsibility to see to their safety. And it didn't alleviate the guilt he felt at being unable to do that. 

By the same token, he knew that they couldn't run forever. It just wasn't possible. Eventually they would tire, and with weariness would come decreased vigilance. If the pursuit did not end, they would be caught, either because they'd get careless or they'd make a foolish mistake. It might be better to settle somewhere and fortify their position. If they were familiar with the land around them, if they knew it better than their pursuers, they might be able to fight them off. Depending, of course, on the number sent after them.

"Hawk," Felix cut into his thoughts, his voice carrying an edge of disapproval. He tapped the pad of his forefinger pointedly against the nape of Hawk's neck. "You're tensing up and ruining all of my hard work."

“Sorry.” Hawk took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled, telling himself to let it all go for the moment. Worrying about capture right now would accomplish nothing. If a small party of armed men burst into the room in a minute, it was unlikely that they’d be able to fight them off or escape. “I was thinking.”

Felix snorted. “I could tell.”

He must have been mollified by the apology, however, because he went right back to the massage a moment later. Hawk did his best to keep his mind on the present and free of futile concerns. It helped to focus on Felix’s hands. They were sure and steady, the oil so smeared across his skin now that there was no uncomfortable friction. And once he was concentrating on them, he could feel more clearly the moment when Felix renewed his magic. Heat flared across all the points of contact, not quite hot enough to burn but certainly stronger than it had been. Slowly, as Felix kneaded and prodded and rubbed, it began to fade.

It became almost meditative after a while, Hawk’s mind drifting aimlessly along with the path Felix’s hands took. From his neck back to his shoulders for one brief pass, then down along either side of his spine in smooth, firm sweeps of his palms. By the time they settled against the small of his back, he was hovering in a peaceful state that was neither wakefulness nor sleep, his mind quiet and his body feeling better than it had in days.

Felix didn’t speak as he worked. Save for the rustle of bedclothes as he moved and the softness of his breathing, the room was silent, allowing Hawk to dimly hear the ambient sounds of life in the village. They seemed far away, dull background noise that was easy to tune out and not the least bit disruptive to relaxation. Someone was calling to someone else about something. A dog was barking. Metal was clanging against metal in a rhythmic pattern. It sounded ordinary, calm in a daily life sort of way. Maybe it was Hawk’s current state bleeding into his perception, but it seemed peaceful.

Maybe they _could_ stay there for a few days.

Just long enough to rest from their travels and learn the lay of the land. They could continue answering to fake names—or possibly these were their real names and they simply thought them fake, even if he had difficulty thinking of himself as a Javik—and when it was time to go, they wouldn’t need to tell anyone their destination. They could even lie, state they planned to go a certain way, even head off in that direction, then circle around once out of sight and go somewhere else entirely. 

Somewhere in his idle musings, Hawk had lost track of Felix’s hands. They’d been busy during his inattention. The blanket that had been covering him was now bunched up down by his knees and his ass was bare to the cool air of the room. Felix was in the middle of massaging those muscles too, his touch surprisingly impersonal for such an intimate place. Any other time, Hawk might have felt a bit silly, but his thoughts were still muted by relaxed contentment and Felix wasn't making any comments.

However, it _was_ a sensitive place and now that he realized what Felix was doing and where, he was focusing on it. And the longer he did that, tracking Felix's hands as they slid under the curve of his ass to dig into the muscle at the top of his thighs and then smoothed back up to work over each cheek, the less placid his thoughts became. It wasn't a sexually suggestive touch, but it was lighting up his nerves and the pleasant sensations were making his cock take interest. It started off as a twitch, a slight tingling that became almost an itch as it started to fill and thicken. Before long, he was hard and simply lying there was a challenge.

The tiniest shift against the sheets brought pleasant friction to his cock and that made it even more difficult not to move. His predicament wasn't helped by Felix, either. The massage itself moved his hips, just little bumps and hitches, but the unpredictability of it only served to increase his arousal.

Felix's hands came to a stop near Hawk's tailbone, lingering there for a moment. Hawk took the time to sternly reprimand himself about times and places for amorous thoughts. In bed as they were was certainly appropriate, but not when Felix was going through all of this hard work to get his uncooperative body to relax. But it didn't help. Neither did the abrupt sensation of Felix's finger slowly trailing downward.

"How are you feeling now, Hawk?" Felix asked as his finger slipped between Hawk's cheeks.

He took a deep breath, fighting the desire to buck his hips, and clenched his fingers into the blankets under his hands.

"Relaxed?" Felix inquired. His fingertip brushed the rim of his hole, lighting up what felt like every nerve in Hawk's body. He tried rather valiantly not to make a sound. "Loose?"

That damnable finger curved around the rim, tracing it, and Hawk made a soft sound into the pillow. It was embarrassing how oblivious he’d just been. The bastard was toying with him.

"You don't feel very loose, Hawk," Felix chided him, sounding too gleefully amused to be innocent. "Quite tight, in fact."

Ever so slowly, he pressed his finger into Hawk. And Hawk, losing the battle with decorum and propriety and whatever other stupid nonsense he'd been hanging onto in the face of rather artfully applied seduction, tried to rock backwards into it. With Felix sitting on him the way that he was, he discovered that he couldn't move as he wished. He could press his hips into the bed, which did feel nice, but getting any more of Felix's finger than what Felix chose to give him was utterly out of the question. Another sound, this one of frustration, got muffled by the pillow.

“Hmm?” Felix queried. “What was that?” His finger slid a little further inside. “I’m afraid I can’t hear you from back here.”

It would have been easy for Hawk to ignore him. All of his blood was heading south, making his thoughts come scattered and hazy and much slower than usual. And it was obvious that he hadn’t said anything of note. Felix was teasing, he well knew. Yet some perversely stubborn part of himself refused to let it go unanswered.

He rallied his thoughts into coherence by staunchly refusing to focus on the pleasant sensations Felix was eliciting from his body, then bullied his throat into producing words instead of just meaningless noises. “I thought this was a massage.”

The forward motion of Felix’s finger stopped, though it was immediately replaced by the pad of it stroking and rubbing—much in the way his hands had moved when they’d been on his back—over a spot that made his ability to think dissolve into a fuzz of nothing. Hawk didn’t know if he made any verbal response to that sudden wave of pleasure, but once it receded he found himself gasping for air.

“Isn’t it?” Felix was saying thoughtfully. “Well, then I suppose I ought to stop, shouldn’t I?”

“Don’t you dare,” Hawk growled immediately, hearing himself saying it before he even knew he wanted to say anything at all.

Felix laughed, sounding rather pleased with himself. There was a low, throaty quality to it that told Hawk that for all his playing at being unaffected, Felix was just as aroused as he was. It brought an involuntary smile to his face, though given their positions, it was a simple thing to hide it in the pillow.

“Ah, so you _are_ enjoying this,” Felix commented, as if there had been any doubt at all. He started to withdraw his finger then, preempting the hiss of opposition Hawk started to take a breath for with a quiet, “Hush.”

When he pressed in, there was a marked increase in pressure and sensation. Two fingers, Hawk realized, exhaling in both pleasure and relief that Felix wasn’t drawing away.

“You know,” Felix was saying conversationally, as he slowly fucked Hawk with his fingers. “I was thinking to just do this. You had a rough night and I thought perhaps too much activity would be detrimental to your health.”

That was patently ridiculous. Hawk didn’t know whether to laugh or protest and when he tried, everything got all muddled and came out as a groan instead of words. Felix’s free hand patted him consolingly on the ass.

“I did say _was_ ,” he told him. “Honestly, Hawk, you aren’t paying attention at all. This is most unlike you.”

He would have laughed, truly he would have done it, but Felix chose that moment to slip a third finger in there and he arched rather awkwardly against the mattress, the muscles across his back flexing and contracting as he tried unsuccessfully to gain leverage. “Felix,” he managed to ground out, though whether it was in warning for teasing too much or as a bid for more, Hawk didn’t know.

Felix continued on as if he hadn’t heard him, the push and retraction of his fingers a steady, measured in and out that gave stretch and fullness without being _enough_. “But then I recalled that conversation we had after we left Redcliffe. Do you remember it?”

As he asked, he pressed down on his next push inside, dragging his fingers over the thick concentration of nerves, and a sharp cry burst from Hawk’s mouth as pleasure wracked him. Felix kept talking, acting utterly oblivious to it all. “No, I suppose you don’t. Let me refresh your memory.”

The next thrust was harder, more insistent, and as Felix buried his fingers as deeply into Hawk as they would go, he leaned over him and whispered in his ear. “You promised me a ravishment, Hawk. I believe it involved, let me see.” Teeth nipped at the edge of Hawk’s ear. “Ah yes. ‘ _Taking me so hard I wouldn’t be able to stand for days without feeling you.’_ Your words, in fact.”

He leaned back, taking the momentary blanket of warmth with him. Hawk took a quick breath, trying and failing to calm his racing heart and dampen his wildly out of control arousal. Now that Felix had brought it up, he _did_ remember saying that, and it was so simple to picture. Twisting around, pushing Felix off of him and down onto the bed, tugging him free of his clothes, and plunging into the heat of his body. It would be hard and frantic, over too fast but Hawk knew he wouldn’t be able to control himself after this to go slower. But he could make up for it later, take Felix again afterward and do it slower. As slow as possible.

“And I would like that, Hawk.” For just an instant, he voice dipped into a rough murmur. “I _really_ would.” He cleared his throat before adding brightly, “But your health is important to me and a quick fuck isn’t worth setting off another episode. _So_ , I had another idea.”

_To the Void with another episode,_ Hawk was thinking. It would be worth it. He would _make_ it worth it. And likely be so exhausted at the end of all the sex that he’d sleep right through whatever pain his body sought to punish him with.  

“What idea?” he prompted, when Felix didn’t continue and the finger-fucking, while not abating, didn’t turn into anything else either.

“I’m going to fuck you.” Hawk could hear the smile in Felix’s voice. “Nice and slow. Very _relaxed_. And tonight, if you’re still feeling up to it, you’re going to make good on your promise.”

Regardless of what was going on with his body, he was going to feel up to it. Was that in doubt? How could it be? Hawk couldn’t imagine. Unless they were forced to flee again or they were finally apprehended by their pursuers, he was absolutely going to fuck Felix. Especially after this wonderfully slow torture.

“Count on it,” he told him, his tone a low, albeit firm, murmur.

“Oh, I do,” Felix replied smoothly. Just as smooth as the unfortunate withdrawal of his fingers. Hawk made a faint sound of protest but Felix ignored it. A few seconds later, the smell of the oil filled the room again. “I’ve been thinking about it quite often. You should know it’s given me rather high expectations.”

Hawk couldn’t remember ever actually engaging in what he’d promised, but he was far from being concerned by that absence of recollection. After all the time spent in Felix’s company unable be as intimate as he wished to be, he’d had ample time to fantasize about what they might do together with time and opportunity. Knowing that Felix had done the same was a boost to his confidence, not a drawback, and he was eager to take on the challenge of surpassing those high expectations.

“Do you intend to daydream about this evening all day or are you going to make good on _your_ promise to fuck me?” Hawk aimed for a casual tone but even so, it came out sounding a bit impatient.    

One of Felix’s hands smoothed over his ass. “Rather impatient, aren’t we?”

That was a stupid question. “Extremely.”

Felix hummed in thoughtful agreement. “Let me just—”

“Let me move for a moment,” Hawk interrupted, rocking his hips not with amorous intent but to make it clear that he wanted Felix to lift his weight from the back of his legs.

“But—”

“Felix.” He shook his legs again. “Move.”

With a heavy, disgruntled sounding sigh, Felix shifted. Hawk felt his weight leave his legs and immediately pushed up onto his hands and knees before further arguments could start.

“That doesn’t look very relaxed,” Felix quipped as he settled himself.

“I’ll be far more relaxed with you inside me than I’ll be lying motionless while you do all the work,” Hawk shot back dryly. “Now for the Maker’s sake, Felix, _fuck me_.”

He could feel Felix moving into a proper position behind him by the way the mattress trembled and shifted beneath him. The hand that Felix placed on his hip was warmer than normal, another touch of his magic that Hawk was discovering was just a little addicting. But instead of doing anything further, he paused. Again.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a little more—”

“ _Felix!”_ Hawk barked sharply.

Finally, _finally_ , he felt the blunt head of Felix’s cock pressing against his hole. The stretch was greater this time, the nerves lighting up so intensely that the pleasure of penetration took on a sharper edge. Hawk breathed out, forcing the tension that had crept into his body right back out. The sensation got sharper as Felix edged his cock a little further inside and in a burst of clarity, he realized that it wasn’t going to get any faster than this. And while the consideration of his comfort was appreciated, Hawk wasn’t in the mood for it anymore.

Rocking back, he pushed himself onto him so fast they both gasped and Felix’s other hand came down and clamped with bruising strength onto his hip. “ _Maker_ , Hawk!” he hissed breathlessly, his voice strained.

Hawk’s wasn’t much better. “I am not so fragile as this, Felix. Move.” It felt like he’d said that far too many times already. “I want to feel you.”

Felix made a soft, half-choked sound, but he didn’t offer any more resistance to Hawk’s request. He gave a short roll of his hips instead, testing the waters. Hawk hummed low in his throat, his fingers slowly curling into the blanket.

“More, Felix,” he murmured, not quite a plea. “I’ve waited long enough for you.”

Perhaps they’d teased each other too much, Felix with intent and Hawk simply by lying there and allowing him unrestrained access to his body. Perhaps Hawk had stumbled unwittingly onto the words necessary to goad him into action. But the teasing and the overly cautious care came to an abrupt end as Felix rocked his hips again, harder and with greater speed. And this time, he didn’t stop.

It wouldn’t have been difficult to try to wrest control of the pace from him, but Hawk didn’t make the attempt. Now that Felix had stopped toying with him, he was content to give himself over to the sensation and quit thinking about anything at all. With Felix’s cock filling him so completely, that was an easy thing to do.

Dropping his head between his arms, Hawk closed his eyes and let the waves of pleasure wash over him. Every plunge into him seemed to light up his nerves and more than once he had to bite his lip against making too much noise when a particularly well-positioned thrust sent an almost overwhelming surge through him. His arms started to shake with the effort of keeping himself upright until finally, finding it too hard to concentrate, Hawk slumped forward onto his forearms.

“Still with me, Hawk?” Felix asked between breaths, sounding impossibly smug.

“You’d know if I wasn’t,” Hawk managed to volley back at him, then tightened his muscles around Felix so tightly that he heard him moan and felt his fingers clench spasmodically around his hips.

“Stop it,” came Felix’s huffed protest a moment later. “I’d like to last to see you through, if you please.”

Smirking to himself, Hawk tightened up again in response. His reward was a low groan and a growled, “Oh, you bloody bastard.”

But Felix’s revenge was swift. Releasing one of his hips, he reached between Hawk’s legs and took hold of his cock. Without giving him the opportunity to get used to the additional contact, he took up a series of quick, firm strokes that had Hawk barreling too fast toward completion.

“ _Felix_ ,” he hissed urgently. “Too fast. I don’t—”

“Don’t what?” Felix inquired, cutting him off. Neither the insistent pumping of his hand nor the steady roll of his hips abated in the slightest. “Don’t want to come?”

Rapidly losing the ability to articulate his thoughts, Hawk growled at him. That was most certainly _not_ what he’d meant. And Felix knew it.

“Foolish man,” Felix replied, the satisfaction replaced now with fondness. “If you think this is the last time we’ll do this, I’m going to enjoy proving you wrong.” He leaned forward, the shift in the angle of his thrusts making Hawk choke on a moan in the process, and murmured near his ear, “Now come for me.”

It didn’t take much further encouragement than that. For a few seconds he seemed to hang suspended on the edge of orgasm, Felix’s hand and his cock keeping him there in excruciatingly perfect stasis. Then it ended in a sudden, glorious rush.

Hawk stilled as it thundered through his body, a flood of pleasure so intense he couldn’t have made a sound if he’d wanted to do it. Felix rode him through it, hips snapping in unrelenting force, the movement of his hand seeming to pull every drop of come from him until he was shuddering in overstimulation. Only then did he release him and take hold of his hip again. Dimly, his mind dulled in the aftermath, Hawk could feel the warm, wet smear on his skin. Felix’s thrusts grew frantic before he abruptly froze, his breath audibly catching, and came.

How long they stayed like that, Felix curled over his back and Hawk with his face pressed near blissfully into the mattress, he didn’t know. Seconds. Minutes. It could have been hours and he likely wouldn’t have noticed. His mind was quiet, his thoughts and fears pushed so far aside that he felt nothing but contented bliss.

It didn’t last. It couldn’t. In time, he felt Felix’s cock go soft inside him and with a soft sigh, Felix eased himself out. Hawk made a feeble sound of protest before slowly tipping over onto his side. Felix joined him an instant later, flopping bonelessly down next to him. Hawk opened his eyes and immediately his gaze was drawn to Felix’s flushed, sweaty skin. Strands of hair were stuck to his forehead; with a lazy half-smile, Hawk coaxed his muscles into cooperation long enough to flick them off of it.

Felix gave him an answering smile, then wormed a little closer and draped his arm over Hawk’s waist. “I suppose it wouldn’t be remiss of us to stay in bed a _little_ while longer,” he mused. “Do you?”

“No.” Leaning forward, Hawk caught his lips in a gentle kiss. “It won’t be remiss at all.”

* * *

Were he to be asked his opinion on matters of the morning, Felix would throw his unwavering support behind the idea that a proper morning started with breakfast and sex with one’s lover. Not necessarily in that order, but certainly in some configuration that included both activities. That they spent another two hours lazing around in bed before finally rising for the day also went a long way toward convincing him that any other routine would be substandard at best.

The day itself proved to be rather uneventful. They both bathed and took their clothes to be laundered. They did a bit of shopping to restock their supplies. Once those tasks were completed, they took some time just to explore the village. Hawk went to go poke around the farmsteads and check on Harid and Kristof, while Felix went to go speak further with the healer. After that, he drifted from one conversation to another, making idle and at times pointed conversation with the locals. Despite his best efforts, he wasn’t able to find out any information that was useful for their predicament. Aside from the random demon incursions, life was evidently pretty uneventful in the village.

It wasn’t until dinner that he finally saw Hawk again, when he breezed into the tavern with his hair a windblown tangle and dirt streaking his clothes. As Felix watched, one eyebrow cocked in curiosity, he made directly for his table and collapsed into the chair across from him.

“Long day?” he asked, the corner of his mouth starting to twitch upward.

Hawk straightened up and grinned at him. It was the kind of grin that lit up his face while simultaneously sucking the air from the room. Looking directly into it, Felix found himself struggling to breathe properly. “I was helping Harid set some posts for his fence.”

Ever so slightly, Felix cocked his head as he mulled over the contents of that sentence. “If I’m understanding you correctly, you were out in the fields playing farmhand?”

Hawk rolled his eyes at him. “Felix.”

Not to be dissuaded from this line of questioning, Felix continued. “And you _enjoyed_ yourself?”

He got an easy, dismissive shrug in response. “I enjoyed being useful.”

“I see.” Over the rim of the glass of wine Felix had been nursing while he’d waited to see if Hawk was going to arrive for dinner or not, he eyed him suspiciously. Hawk took the criticism with good humor, huffing and kicking lightly at Felix’s leg under the table. “Perhaps you might _make yourself useful_ by going to acquire dinner from Greta, hmm?”

There was a glimmer in Hawk’s eyes as he rose to his feet, clearly not put out over the heckling he was getting for spending his day doing manual labor. Flicking one finger up into the air, Felix halted him before he could do as bid. “ _After_ you wash your hands. You filthy farmers might enjoy the mud but I, for one, have no wish to have it for dinner.”

Hawk sketched such an elaborate, overblown bow that Felix chuckled. Then, not wishing to encourage the cheeky bastard, waved him off to fetch their food.

Dinner itself was a pleasant affair. Hawk, freshly washed and no longer smelling of earth and the outdoors, returned with plates piled high with food. None of the other diners present interrupted their meal. The food was as fresh as it had been the night before. And after they’d finished, they sat in front of the fire and have a few drinks. Conversation flowed easily between them, and when silence settled over them, it was comfortable and companionable. The village might have been more rural than Redcliffe, but in terms of relaxation and hospitality, it was unquestionably better.

They were both slightly tipsy by the time Felix called it a night. Hawk rose with him when he got up to head up to their room and together they wove their way through the tavern’s common room, acknowledging now familiar faces with smiles and nods as they passed them by.

He was yawning, tired but not quite exhausted, as he opened the door and stepped inside. “Shall we—”

Just like that, he found himself being shoved up against the wall. His question cut short with a snap that nearly took off the tip of his tongue. There were hands on his hips, their grip tight enough to bruise, and hot breath on the back of his neck, the sensation heightened by the faint prickle of stubble that scratched against his skin.

The abrupt jolt of adrenaline that had raced through him as he’d collided with the wall had immediately dispelled the thought-dulling alcoholic fog from his mind, which was likely why Hawk _hadn’t_ found himself unceremoniously set on fire. Otherwise, he might have thought it an actual attack. “Hawk? What in the—”

Again he was interrupted, though this time Hawk’s teeth biting into his nape was the culprit. It was just hard enough that the sharpness of it went straight to his cock. What fight remained in him evaporated and Felix let his forehead drop forward until it was resting against the wall.

“You wanted ravished,” Hawk murmured against his neck, pulling his hips back slightly before letting them go. His intent became clear a moment later when Felix felt his hands at the laces of his trousers, tugging them loose. “So you shall be.”

Felix had enough presence of mind to muse over the wonder of the laces not breaking under Hawk’s mistreatment before they finally came undone. Wasting no time, Hawk yanked his trousers down, catching at the sides of his smallclothes and taking them along. Before Felix had the chance to register the temperature of the air on his now bare skin Hawk was pressing against him, grinding against his ass. Automatically, he pushed back against it, wanting more of the hardness that the trousers Hawk was still wearing couldn’t conceal.

“Ha—” It should have been his name, but it melted into a groan as one of Hawk’s hands took hold of his cock and began stroking him in hard, erratic pumps that failed to set a rhythm and kept him from gathering his thoughts.

“There’s the oil?” Hawk paused in the midst of grazing his teeth across the back of Felix’s neck to ask.

Between the alcohol he’d consumed and what Hawk was doing to him, expecting him to remember where he’d put oil hours ago seemed a bit unrealistic. Felix closed his eyes, ignored the question, and did his best with limited room to maneuver to buck his hips impatiently into Hawk’s hand. For his trouble, he got a nip so hard it almost made him yelp.

“The oil, Felix,” Hawk growled. _Actually growled._ If he kept it up, it was going to be a repeat of that episode in the elven couple’s barn.

“I don’t,” he tried, only managing grudging coherence. He groaned as the effort splintered. “There.” Prying a hand away from the wall, he gestured sloppily toward the nearby bureau. “Somewhere.”

“ _Don’t move_ ,” Hawk hissed, then pulled away so abruptly that Felix whined a protest.

Slumping against the wall, Felix turned his head and watched as Hawk rummaged through the bureau. There was a low fire burning in the grate on the opposite end of the room, built by one of the tavern’s employees prior to their arrival, and it cast just enough light for him to see that he was doing it one-handed. Hawk’s other hand was untying the laces of his trousers. He found the bottle without difficulty, poured some of the oil into his hand, and turned back to Felix, liberally working his oily hand over his cock without the least hint of shame.

Felix smiled, a slow, wicked grin, but before he could decide whether to test the order not to move and give himself a few strokes, Hawk was behind him again.

“So you can follow orders,” Hawk murmured, scattering kisses across the flesh he’d bitten. One of his fingers probed at Felix’s hole as he spoke, offering just the slightest warning before he pushed in.

Breath catching, Felix considered trying to argue—he was _not_ overly agreeable and Hawk knew it—but he wasn’t given time to find his ability to speak. Hawk thrust his finger in and out of his ass with determination, one finger quickly becoming two. It was rough, but it felt _good_ and Felix felt his fingers curling against the wall with impatience. He was so hard and the motion of Hawk’s hand kept pushing his hips forward, causing the tip of his cock to brush against the wall. It was maddening, those little teases of sensation and friction.

“I want—” The demand broke off into a gasp as three fingers plunged into him and stretched him wider. “Fuck. Hawk.” His voice was getting thready with need. “Just touch me.”

Hawk chuckled, the sound heard a low gravelly grumble and felt in the vibration against his back and the puffs of breath across his neck. “I am touching you.” His fingers, buried inside him, crooked up and Felix shuddered at the burst of pleasure. “Can you not feel it?”

“Not...” He took a shaky gulp of air. “What I meant. I want...”

Contradictory bastard that he was, Hawk withdrew his fingers without any warning. Before Felix could rally his complaints, something larger was pressing into him and he rocked backward into it, wringing a surprised gasp from Hawk. But that was it. That one second of hesitation. Hawk’s hands dropped to Felix’s hips, one dry and was slick, and as he took hold, he snapped his hips, driving himself all the inside.

A noise too strangled to be identified escaped Felix’s throat. Hawk didn’t stop. Not offering time to adjust, he set up such a poundingly fast rhythm that Felix couldn’t form thoughts, much less words. The feelings flooding him were overwhelming: heat, fullness, breathtaking force, and pleasure. So much pleasure, as Hawk’s cock rubbed over that cluster of nerves inside him over and over again.

Hawk was breathing just as fast as Felix, too fast to speak. Too fast to moan or groan or make any kind of indication of his pleasure whatsoever. Only the sounds of their panting gasps and the wet, dull smack of flesh filled the room. Until Hawk let go of his hip and took hold of his cock again. Felix cried out, maybe too loud but he didn’t register the volume and likely wouldn’t have cared if he had. And then, seconds, possibly a minute later, it was over.

Felix came so hard he couldn’t breathe. His body seized, ass tightening around Hawk’s cock so quickly that with a few convulsive thrusts he was coming too. Felix could feel the heat of it inside him, knew without needing to look down that he’d spilled all over Hawk’s hand. In a slow, boneless slide, the tension went out of him and he leaned forward, letting the wall take his weight. Hawk followed, draping himself against Felix’s back.

How long they stood there like that, Felix didn’t know. He hadn’t the wherewithal to measure the passage of time. Eventually their racing hearts calmed and rapid breathing eased. The sweat stopped trickling down his spine and Hawk’s cock softened so much that it slipped out of him without any effort to disengage on either of their parts.

“Bed, I think,” Hawk finally murmured sluggishly against the side of his throat.

_Do you intend to carry me?_ Felix meant to say, however all that came out of him when he tried was a grunt of acknowledgement.

Hawk didn’t carry him. They stumbled more drunkenly than the alcohol had made them to the bed and collapsed upon it in a tangle of limbs. They were both still wearing their boots and their trousers had collected near the tops of them by the time they came to haphazard rest, but Felix couldn’t be bothered to reach down to pull the trousers up or take the boots off. And judging from how Hawk wrapped an arm around him and tugged him in against his chest, he didn’t intend to see to his state of dress either.

_Deal with it tomorrow_ , Felix decided, closing his eyes and pressing his face in against what felt like Hawk’s shoulder. It wasn’t worth the effort to open them and check. Sleep was setting in fast and he didn’t want to discourage its arrival.

“Stay,” Hawk mumbled into his hair, apropos to nothing.

It was so obvious that he had no intention of moving that Felix didn’t dignify it with a response. Of course he was going to stay! As if he meant to abandon Hawk now, the stupid man.

“Here,” he continued after a lengthy silence. So close to passing out, Felix almost didn’t hear him and once he had registered that he had, he struggled to make sense of it. Hawk clarified a moment later. “Stay here. For a little.”

_Yes_ , Felix thought, smiling as something strangely warm and contented settled into his chest. That feeling followed him down as he drifted off to sleep, along with a drowsy thought. _Yes, we’ll stay here. Just for a few days_.


	11. Chapter 11

 

All too easily, _a few days_ became a week. And then two. It wasn't through any deliberate attempt to postpone continuing on their travels on Hawk's part. Or on Felix's, either. It just happened, too gradually for either of them to notice until they'd been lingering in the village so long that Greta had finally suggested, in such a nonchalant fashion that it fooled absolutely no one, that maybe they'd like to check out the available properties. There were a number of them. People who'd been killed during one of the tragedies that had befallen the land or those who had gone off to join the Inquisition and then never returned for one reason or another had left quite a few homes vacant.

The notion was still as preposterous as when she'd first introduced it. Of course they couldn't stay. Not permanently. A temporary reprieve from running and constantly looking over their shoulders was all this dalliance in the village could ever be. Anything else was too risky. Simply because they hadn't been discovered didn't mean that they never would be. Eventually their enemies would come. Or a traveler would come through and recognize them. Or there would be a reward for information on their location—if there wasn't already—that would been too tempting for one of the villagers to resist. Staying was not an option. 

And yet, the time to leave never quite came.

* * *

 "Do you smell that?" Nose wrinkling as a strong, faintly acrid smell assaulted it, Hawk glanced sideways in curious inquiry.

Beside him, Felix was walking along without looking at the path in front of him, absently paging through a battered book he’d just picked up at Reingard’s general store. “You’’ll have to be more specific, Hawk,” he murmured, obviously not giving the matter his full attention. “There’s quite a bouquet of aromas this afternoon.”

He wasn’t wrong. The day’s crisp air and breezy, clear skies made it easier for a variety of scents to make their way to Hawk’s nose. The hearty, mouthwatering smell of fresh bread baking in the home they’d just passed. The sharp tang of molten metal at the smithy’s forge. The pungency of the fertilizer mixture that someone had recently spread in their garden. The sharper scent of pine needles. And above it all, the acridity of smoke. 

Gaze drifting away from Felix, Hawk scanned the area around them. It wasn’t the best vantage point. They were standing in the lower part of the village, surrounded by buildings, trees, and high shrubbery. He could see nothing outside of the ordinary occurring anywhere nearby. 

“Smoke,” Hawk told him, squinting against the sun’s glare.

Exhaling a soft breath that had _just_ enough strength that it was easy to suspect it was a huff of minor mockery, Felix said dryly, "That's hardly surprising. It _is_ the middle of winter. I would expect these people to have enough sense to keep their fires lit."

Hawk couldn't deny that there was a chill in the air and that he had to wear extra layers because of it, but it was hardly the blustery, inhospitably frigid conditions Felix was making it sound like it was. "According to what Harid has told me, it’s the beginning of springtime."

That got more of a reaction than anything else he'd just said had. Glancing askance at him, Felix raised disbelieving eyebrows. "Incomplete though my memory might be, I do still recall the definition of the term and it is more certainly _not_ getting warmer."

Although Hawk wasn't feeling uncommonly disagreeable at the moment, it was tempting to argue the point with him. Arguments with Felix rarely came out in his favor, but Hawk was certain that he would win this particular one. An outcry from the western side of the village, however, interrupted all prospects of scoring such a victory. 

A man's cry of alarm—unintelligible from Hawk's location—was taken up quickly by others, spurring Felix to close the book as they both started running in the direction of the commotion. As they got closer, the scent of smoke got stronger and by the time they could hear what everyone was shouting, Hawk already knew the source of the trouble. A building was on fire. And once they got beyond the cluster of homes they'd been walking through, he could clearly see which one.

Marik's farm was the closest of the surrounding farmsteads to the village and it was his main barn that was ablaze. Hawk had spoken with him a few times since their arrival, though he couldn't claim to know the man well. He knew that Marik grew crops that he shared with the village and that he had a modest herd of horses about which he was rather proud. Some of those horses were visible fleeing the fire, while others were being held by villagers who had already arrived to assist in putting out the flames. But shouts were still ringing out. Not all of the horses had escaped. 

"Can you extinguish the flames?" Hawk asked Felix as they reached the scene, fighting with himself against the impulse to reach for his sword. He wasn't carrying it at the moment, making it ridiculous, and even if he had been, steel wasn't going to do them any good in this fight.

"I'm not a cloud," Felix snapped back, yet from the glimpse Hawk caught of his face, he was readying himself to do some sort of spell. "I can hardly rain on it."

"You'll think of something," Hawk assured him firmly.

Without waiting to see what it was, he darted around a woman with a bucket of water and charged into the barn. Behind him, he could hear Felix shouting at him, no doubt calling him a fool and other such disparagement, but he didn't have the luxury of time to reassure him that he knew what he was doing. The truth was, he didn't. He was acting on instinct the same way he'd reacted to the demon that had attacked Harid earlier in the week. All he knew was that the horses were in danger and that while he was capable of aiding them, he would do so.

The inside of the barn was thick with smoke. It immediately filled his nose and set him to coughing. Covering the lower part of his face with his forearm, Hawk pressed forward, eyes narrowed against the wild flickering of the flames, trying to see where to go. Over the loud popping crackle of the fire devouring the barn, he could hear the frightened squealing of one, maybe two horses and changed his trajectory as best he could. The way was obstructed by burning piles of debris and it was getting harder for Hawk to breathe, but he moved as quickly as he was able, dodging around what he could and, in one heart-stopping instance, barreling straight through a wall of fire, praying to the Maker the entire way that he wouldn't catch fire too.

Perhaps the Maker heard his prayers, or he'd simply moved too fast for anything to get set alight, because he got through it unscathed—if a bit breathless and with his heart pounding furiously—and found the stalls in which the horses were currently trapped. A bolt was still thrown on one of doors and the post near the open doorway of the other was already burning, keeping that horse backed against the rapidly diminishing safety of the far wall. 

Ducking away from the flames, Hawk hurried into the stall, murmuring what he hoped were calming noises. Whether the horse could hear him over all the noise was debatable. It tossed its head and reared back away from him, but Hawk was persistent. He lunged toward it, snagged his fingers around the leather of its bridle, and started pulling it out.

"Come on," he urged it with more calm than he actually felt, keeping up the pressure without letting it turn into jerky, panicked tugs. He knew, without knowing quite how he knew it, that that would only cause the horse to bolt the wrong way. "Come with me so I can get you out of here."

And it did. The horse fought him at the doorway for a few seconds, not wanting to go through, but somehow he got it out and then he got it moving toward the second stall. Extracting that horse went a lot faster. As soon as he opened the door, the horse came out and together, the three of them hurried to the back of the barn and out one of the secondary entrances.

Hawk got them all about twenty feet away from the barn before he stopped and let the horses go. They went on without him at a fast clip, hurrying to the safety of the nearest field. Bent over, coughing the smoke from his lungs while trying to replace it with the cold, clean air, Hawk glanced over his shoulder. From where he stood, he could hear no more cries of trapped animals, though whether that meant he'd rescued them all or there had been some that had succumbed to the smoke and fire, he didn't know and couldn't be sure without going back inside.

He almost did it too, the danger to himself be damned to the Void. But one of Marik's sons came around the side of the barn and found him there. As clearly as he could amidst the coughing, he told the young man that he'd gotten two horses out and pointed him to where they were slowing to a stop some distance away. Gratitude and relief washed over the son's face as he confirmed that that meant all of the family's horses were safe.

Once he could breathe properly again, Hawk went back to the front of the barn to join the effort to extinguish the fire. By that time, however, Felix had gotten it under control. The roof was sleeted over with ice and more of it was sliding along the sides of the building even as he reached his mage's side.

Since he was looking at him, Hawk caught the lightning fast sideways flick of Felix's eyes. They didn't linger on him, Felix's concentration remained on the fire and the ice he was summoning to combat it, but Hawk knew that he had divined his actions from the soot that blackened his skin and clothes.

"We're going to have words later," Felix told him softly, voice eerily placid. "Many of them." 

"The horses are safe." No doubt that would do little to dampen Felix's ire, but Hawk said it anyway. In retrospect, perhaps just a bit too blithely undisturbed. 

Because there _were_ a number of harsh words delivered pointedly to him on a scathingly sharp tongue that evening, after they'd washed up, eaten, and retired to their room to rest. Hawk weathered Felix's anger with an expression that was equal parts attentive and serious, listening as he berated him for being rash and foolish and risking his life without taking two seconds to _think_ first. He offered no excuse and made no attempt to interrupt him. Instead, he let him speak his piece in full, then stepped forward, wrapped his arms tightly around him, and kissed his forehead in apology and reassurance. 

"I couldn't stand idly by and let them suffer," Hawk told him quietly, murmuring the words into Felix's hair. "And I knew that you would not allow the flames to consume everything." 

"Your faith in me is touching," Felix muttered back, his querulous words lacking the angry tone that would have otherwise given them bite. An instant later, his arms slid around Hawk's waist and tightened considerably, returning the embrace. "They nearly did, you know." 

Hawk nodded, pressing one last kiss to his skin before lifting his head. "Marik's going to need help rebuilding." 

Tipping his chin up slightly, Felix regarded him in silence for a moment through narrowed, scrutinizing eyes. "And you want to help him." 

There wasn't anything inherently wrong with that. The barn was a large structure and it had sustained extensive damage. It would take Marik and his sons a long time to repair and rebuild it if he didn't have help. And help he would absolutely have. The fire had barely gone out before the villagers had formed a plan to aid in the endeavor.

"That's what this community is built on," Greta had told them proudly over dinner a few hours earlier. "We help those who need it." 

Hawk and Felix weren't part of the community. They were travelers passing through on their way to somewhere else. But while they were there, Hawk couldn't countenance doing nothing. He had two hands, an able body, and the strength to haul beams and climb ladders as well as the next man. 

Still eyeing him, Felix shook his head. Then, slowly, he said, "I'm beginning to think I was wrong about you." 

It was an ominous enough statement with too many negative, unpleasant connotations that Hawk froze. "What do you mean?"

The corner of Felix's mouth twitched upward. "I thought you a mighty templar," he told him in a lofty, somewhat haughty tone that experience told Hawk was wholly affected. "But you're turning into a hopeless farmer."

"Is that truly so unappealing?" Hawk asked, arching an eyebrow.

Felix hummed a noncommittal note before shrugging lightly. His fingers brushed upward along Hawk's back in a gesture that was hard to interpret as anything but a caress. "It depends if I benefit from these muscles at all or if you're only going to use them for manual labor." 

Laughing, Hawk lifted him into the air, ignoring his sudden squawk of indignant protest, and carried him to the bed. By the time he set him down, Felix was doing a bad job of trying to hide a smile of his own.

"I'll take that as a yes it shall benefit me, hmm?" 

Leaning in for a kiss that started off as simply a brush of lips and turned into something languid and lingering, Hawk eventually drew back far enough to respond. He knew it wasn't necessary, Felix was no fool, but he couldn't resist the opportunity to do so. "If my actions do not benefit you in some way, I am doing something wrong." 

Exhaling a soft, amused snort, Felix stole another kiss. This one didn't last quite as long as the first, and when it ended, he ran his fingertips over Hawk's cheek, forefinger detouring to trace the scar above his lip. There was satisfaction, and an ample amount of affection, in his eyes as he looked at him. "I do like a man who can admit when he's wrong." 

"Now I understand what you see in me," Hawk returned lightly. 

It would have been nice to continue with the banter and the exchange of kisses. Even better, to follow those kisses to something more pleasurable. But this conversation _was_ important and Hawk couldn't do them the disservice of getting distracted by his desires before he'd ensured that Felix was truly agreeable to the idea he'd proposed. 

Growing serious, he met Felix's eyes. "Are you certain you do not mind? It will delay our departure from the village and I would not endanger you for the sake of another." 

Smiling openly now, perhaps because of the declaration he'd just heard, Felix patted his cheek. "It's quite all right with me. That store has got a few more books on sale and I've yet to read the one I purchased today. Build your dreadfully dull barn, Farmer Hawk. I'll keep myself entertained with more..." He paused to choose a word; surprisingly, the one he settled on turned out to be far milder than Hawk was expecting. "...scholarly pursuits."

* * *

After necessity had forced them to spend night after night outdoors, huddled together for whatever meager warmth two bodies and a few blankets could generate, choosing to spend the evening outside for _fun_ seemed as bizarre as running through the village shouting his real name at the top of his lungs. When Hawk had suggested it, Felix had stared at him in bewildered disbelief for so long that he'd started to flush in embarrassment. Yet, instead of being the sensible person he knew himself to be in the marrow of his bones and informing him in no uncertain terms that he would absolutely _not_ be roughing it in the countryside again, Felix had eventually sighed in long-suffering exasperation and agreed to do it. Nothing more than a bout of temporary insanity, he'd told himself, though the self-deception was difficult to sell when he knew damn well he'd only agreed to the ridiculous idea to make Hawk happy.

And it had. 

The daft man had spent the rest of the afternoon collecting and organizing supplies for the occasion, looking far more content than anyone had a right to be when facing hours of nothing but sitting around in the dark and freezing one's arse off. Felix had pieced together a few haughty comments to demonstrate both his sharp wit and his superior intelligence in _not_ wanting to do something so stupid, but he never managed to voice any of them. No doubt Hawk would have brushed all of it off without taking offense, and truly, none would have been meant. At this point in their relationship, he was confident that Hawk knew the difference between his expressions of true irritation and simple jesting. But he just couldn't do it. 

Life in the village was suiting Hawk. Felix would have had to have been blind to miss it. Gone were the nearly daily attacks of pain and Hawk had not reported a headache for almost an entire week. The knowledge of their danger hadn't faded, neither of them forgotten that there were those hunting for them, but the stress of constant flight, meager rest, and poor nutrition had disappeared. And in its absence, Hawk's health improved dramatically. 

Even when he did foolish things like charge thoughtlessly into fights with demons or burning buildings to rescue livestock. 

Now, sitting on a log a few feet from the fire that Hawk had started as soon as they'd arrived at the spot that Felix privately thought he'd chosen at complete random, he had to concede—to himself; he would never admit it to Hawk—that the experience wasn't as atrocious as he'd been sure it was going to be. The air was still cold, rumors of spring notwithstanding, and the log was uneven and dirty, a far cry from the comfortable mattress and thick blankets waiting for them back at the tavern. But beyond the fire's glare, Felix could make out innumerable stars shining brightly in the sky and one of the moons was rising full on the horizon. 

"Shall we ask Greta to redecorate our room, then?" Felix glanced sideways at Hawk, who was too busy digging through the large pack he'd brought with them to notice the elegantly arched eyebrow and wry quirk of lips with which he was being graced. 

"Hm?" The hum of confusion was not accompanied by Hawk lifting his head and looking over as he was meant to do. In fact, Felix wasn't certain he'd paid enough attention to actually hear him. 

"Replace the bed with a rather large log," Felix continued helpfully, more interested now to see what was so fascinating in the pack than in watching the flames dance in the faint breeze. "Perhaps toss some dirt on the floor." 

Without looking at him, Hawk chuckled. "You're being ridiculous."

"And you're ignoring me." The observation fell on ears that were either deaf or unconcerned by the egregious slight. Hawk was too absorbed in withdrawing two cloth-wrapped bundles of comparable size and a somewhat larger, bulkier one. "What is all that?" 

Instead of answering the question, Hawk supplied one of his own, hand hovering at the opening of the pack. "Are you cold?"

It was tempting to complain about freezing to death simply to give him a hard time, but Felix settled for pursing his lips in a noncommittal frown and gave it some legitimate thought. He was cold, yes, though it was not unbearable. The fire was large enough that it provided a comfortable level of heat. Perhaps he would have been somewhat less cold if he sat a little closer to it, but it wasn't necessary. Thus far, the temperature was tolerable. 

"If that's some roundabout offer to add more wood to the fire, I won't complain." _He_ could make it larger, of course. A thought would cause it to burn hotter than it was and with only the tiniest bit of focus, he could keep it that way for the duration of their evening. But Hawk had dashed that plan on their traipsing journey out to the hillside before he could start to formulate it, claiming that he wanted to handle it without the aid of magic.

Without a word, Hawk pulled out a large woven blanket and held it out to him. Maybe it was the shadows being cast across his face from the fire that made it look like he was smirking smugly. When Felix looked again after taking the blanket, his expression wasn't quite so clearly defined. 

"You're awfully prepared," he quipped lightly as he wrapped himself in the additional layer of warmth. Uncomfortable though he wasn't, he also wasn't foolish enough to reject the offer.

"I tried to be." Was it his imagination or did Hawk _sound_ smug now? "Here." 

He unwrapped one of the smaller bundles, revealing a ceramic mug, and held it out. Felix took it curiously, turning it over in his hands for a moment before shooting Hawk a curious look. A companion mug was revealed next and then finally, a bottle of something that looked suspiciously like wine. It was so unexpected that Felix's eyebrows rose in surprise. 

"If that turns out to be that abysmal cider you enjoy so much," he warned with mock severity. “I'm going to be terribly disappointed in you." 

Openly smirking now, Hawk popped the cork and poured a generous amount of some dark, spicy smelling liquid into Felix's mug. He poured a similar helping into his own mug, set the bottle down on the ground between them, and held up his mug as though he meant to make a toast. Felix eyed him in confusion, then slowly tapped his own against Hawk's. 

"What's the occasion?" he asked, starting to feel just a little impatient with all the mystery.

Hawk took a slow sip from the mug, watching Felix over the rim of it, before he answered him. "By my reckoning, it's been two months." 

That was not nearly as illuminating as he'd hoped it would be. "Since...?" 

"Meeting you for the second time." 

Hawk delivered it with such casual negligence that for a moment Felix had a difficult time parsing it. Once he had, however, he felt something twist and tighten in his chest. His mouth felt unaccountably dry, yet when he tried to swallow, his throat felt too tight to do it. The mug sat forgotten in his lap, fingers too slack around it to lift it to his lips. 

Another smile worked its way across Hawk's mouth. It was softer than the previous one, affectionate instead of smug. "Perhaps I shall have another occasion to mark," he commented with gentle amusement. "It isn't often I find you without something to say."

Whether Hawk said it to prod him back into working order or not, it did the trick. "I've plenty to say," he responded with a haughty sniff. "The trouble is deciding where to start." 

As undeterred by Felix's return to normalcy as he was unrepentant about spouting such sentimental nonsense, Hawk just smiled around another sip. "So much has been lost to us and might never be regained. I thought it important to celebrate still having that which is most vital to my life." 

 _Of all the..._ He couldn't even finish the thought, he was so overcome by an inexplicable rush of emotions. Affection. Gratitude. Wonder. A strange kind of longing that he couldn't understand and that had no real place in the moment. Flustered and more than a little confused as to why he was reacting like this, Felix finally got himself working properly and hastily took a drink. 

It _was_ wine. Full-bodied and spicy, it blazed a trail of warmth down his throat and into his chest after he swallowed it. Without needing to ask, he knew it was another manifestation of Hawk's thoughtfulness. Not only did he enjoy the taste of it, it offered another degree of warmth against the cold, which was something they'd discovered Hawk tolerated much better than he did. 

"Ridiculous man," Felix remarked, trailing off to lick a drop of the wine from his lips. If his voice sounded somewhat rougher than usual, he waved it off as a side-effect of the potency of the wine. _Of course_ that was all it was. 

" _Your_ ridiculous man," Hawk clarified easily, reaching out to cover Felix's free hand with his own. 

 _Damn the man anyway, always knowing what to say_. Because he did. He always did. Felix wasn't blind to it. All the jabs and barbs he threw his way, all the snide comments that he might have taken offense to or interpreted as meaning less to Felix than he did, Hawk accepted with an astonishing equanimity. Perhaps if he was tired or in a sour mood he might snap back, but Felix's penchant for sarcasm never caused the arguments that it could have provoked. And occasionally, when Felix got mired in an emotional quandary from which he couldn't immediately extricate himself, Hawk seemed to have no trouble navigating through it. 

 _I don't know what I did to deserve you,_ Felix thought, watching him through eyes that expressed far more of the truth of his thoughts than his mouth seemed capable of doing. _But Maker, I hope that I continue doing it. Whatever it is._  

"I should hope so," he settled on saying archly. "I haven't the faintest desire to share you." 

At that, Hawk laughed heartily. Felix smiled with feigned indulgent patience, but he wasn't so distracted by the welcome sound that he failed to notice the way Hawk's fingers squeezed his hand. The laughter was still in his eyes a moment later, as he said, with a half-smile, "You shall not have to." 

* * *

 When he'd suggested hiking out to the bluff overlooking the village and having a picnic, Hawk had intended for them to have a pleasant meal while soaking in the warmth and sunshine of the first day of summer. Even after they'd procured proper clothing suitable for the elements in this part of the world, Felix had still complained about the cold whenever the opportunity arose. Which, as it happened, was nearly every day. He kept the fire burning hot in their room every night and had purchased additional blankets for the bed. Where Hawk's wardrobe remained rather meager—he saw no purpose in having dozens of shirts and coats in various styles and colors when a few would do just fine—Felix had amassed a relatively large collection in the short time they'd been in residence. In an effort to combat the temperature, most of it was sweaters, thick shirts, and coats. And to hear him talk, it wasn't nearly enough.

Spring had arrived despite Felix's assertions that it was still winter, but it had done little to drive off the chill. At least according to Felix. Hawk continued to think it got warmer day by day, though whenever he brought the subject up it was quickly shot down. But unlike its predecessor, summer's arrival, was drastically different. 

The sky was cloudless and clear, a deep azure that seemed to stretch on forever. There was hardly any noticeable breeze. And when he stepped outside after breakfast, Hawk immediately turned around to get a lighter shirt. Felix, for once, had no complaints and spent most of the morning sitting out in the garden behind the tavern, ostensibly reading one of his new books, but Hawk knew he was soaking in the sunlight and warmth like some kind of oversized snake. 

Because he was visibly enjoying himself and quite obviously content to remain outdoors for the first time in memory, Hawk had gathered together a simple yet hearty lunch of meats, cheeses, a loaf of fresh bread courtesy of Greta, some fruit-filled pastries from the baker, and a bottle of light wine. Then he'd collected Felix and set off to the bluff, where they would have a nice view of the village and the countryside around it, the security of knowing that they were too close to a settlement to be attacked, and privacy so that they might speak freely to one another without having to worry about being overheard.

That had been the plan, anyway. But Felix had had other ideas and had pushed Hawk down onto the blanket seconds after he'd spread it out on the ground. He hadn't wasted time with kisses or seduction either, opting instead to forego all of that and simply unlace Hawk's trousers. 

"What about lunch?" Hawk heard himself asking, his voice a little too breathless for it to be true opposition. The pathetic attempt at trying to dissuade Felix did not, however, prevent him from chastising himself for being an idiot. _Maker, what's wrong with you? Shut up._  

Felix flexed his fingers, loosening and tightening them around Hawk's cock in tiny, irregular pulses. "It will keep," he said casually, without even a hint of concern. 

And Hawk, bloody fool that he was, found himself still trying to talk Felix into postponing this unexpected interlude until after lunch. "I thought you were hungry." 

Pausing in the middle of slinking down Hawk's body, Felix glanced up at him and met his eyes. They were dark with lust, the lighter grey barely noticeable for how large his pupils had become. "Famished." 

It felt like the low, velvety growl bypassed his ears entirely and went straight for his cock. A fresh wave of arousal swept over him and, too caught up in it to resist, Hawk rolled his hips upward into Felix's hand in a very blatant demand for more deliberate contact and friction. 

"Ah, ah." Clicking his tongue in disapproval, Felix pushed Hawk's hips back down onto the blanket with his free hand. "Keep still." 

Slumping back with a groan, Hawk threw his arm over his eyes. "I don't think that's possible." 

"If you don't want me to bind you, you'll discover a way to do as I ask," Felix told him darkly. 

Unlikely though it was that Felix meant it the way it sounded, Hawk's heart started to pound and his breath came in faster, shorter pants. Something restless and electric filled his body, neither arousal nor fear but something inexplicably caught in the middle. The stubborn part of him wanted to challenge that warning and push to see if Felix would follow through with it. Another part of him shrank away from the notion of being bound with magic in any way. Even magic that was wielded by Felix. Yet despite the conflicting emotions, he hadn't grown soft at the threat. 

Not ready to explore it at the moment and unwilling to let the reaction ruin the mood, Hawk shoved it to the back of his mind and tried to get himself under control. "If you would cease your infernal teasing, it wouldn't be an issue." 

"Teasing?" Felix asked, sounding shocked and affronted. "What teasing is that, pray tell? Hm?" It might have been more convincing if he'd left it at that, but instead of staring Hawk down, he leaned forward and licked a slow path over to the tip of his cock. "Did you mean that?" His thumb slid slowly along the underside of Hawk's shaft, then swept back down in a leisurely caress. "Or something else?" 

Without waiting for Hawk to answer him, Felix dipped his tongue into the slit as his lips surrounded the head. Gently, he sucked a drop of liquid straight from the source. The sensation made Hawk shudder and his fingers curl involuntarily into fists as his body strained against his control in a bid to move. 

"Hawk?" Felix was asking, thumb still stroking his cock. "Are you still with me?" 

"Felix." In short, rapid bursts, Hawk managed to force the words out despite his tense jaw. "Please. Get on with it." 

"Such impatience," Felix chided him, lifting his head up just far enough to shake it. "I swear, it's like I never touch you." 

Reaching down, Hawk threaded the fingers of one hand through Felix's hair and gave it an encouraging, albeit slightly impatient, tug. "I'm beginning to think you mean not to do it at all." 

Felix had the audacity to fix him with an expression that looked a great deal like a pout. "I wish to savor you, Hawk." 

For that, he got a snort and another subtly sharper tug. "Savor me later. Take me into your mouth now." 

Sometimes, it was difficult to determine when Felix was going to be obliging and when he was going to continue to be an obstinate tease. From the playfully wicked way he was looking at him, Hawk suspected it was going to be the latter. Yet surprisingly, Felix didn't continue to dally. Without another word, he leaned forward and took Hawk's cock into his mouth. Nearly every inch of it.

It happened so fast and felt so good that Hawk's sharp inhale turned into a strangled moan halfway through. Felix must have been pleased by the reaction, because an instant later a low chuckle vibrated up the length of his shaft. And it didn't stop there. Felix worked him with his hand as well as his mouth, chasing the movement of his head with his fist. He sucked at the head of Hawk's cock whenever he withdrew, then preceded each descent back down with the tight circle of his fingers. His other hand remained wrapped around Hawk's hip, the fabric of his trousers preventing Felix's nails from digging into his skin where he gripped him. 

For his part, Hawk tried to keep as still as Felix had told him to be. It was a challenge; his body kept urging him to take control of the pace and thrust up into the wet heat of his mouth. He fought it, unintentionally holding tighter to Felix's hair in the process. It was Felix's wordless murmur that clued him into what he was doing, but instead of being a growl of discomfort, it sounded like a hum of goading. On the next upward sweep of his mouth, Felix looked up at him and met his eyes, dispelling any notion that he might not appreciate the rough treatment. 

By the look in his eyes, he appreciated it a great deal. 

"Felix..." His name was a near soundless gasp. Hawk didn't know what he meant to follow it with. He barely realized he was speaking at all. 

Perhaps Felix understood anyway, because he moved a little faster. He sucked just a tiny bit harder. And in moments, the sensation building in Hawk snapped, radiating mind-numbing pleasure through his body. He barely felt Felix sucking him dry or laving the last traces of his release from his skin, so dulled by his climax were his senses. 

When he came back to himself, Hawk found Felix lying next to him on the blanket, pressed in against his side. His cock had been neatly tucked back into his trousers and the laces retied. It was an oddly sweet gesture. Glancing over at Felix, about to remark on it, he saw that his eyes were closed and his lower lip was caught between his teeth. 

Looking down between them, he saw Felix's laces undone and his hand working swiftly over his own cock. Hawk knew that he ought to offer his aid, yet even as he opened his mouth to do so, he found himself enthralled at the sight of Felix finding his pleasure. It was more erotic than it had any right to be and Hawk couldn't look away. 

Felix's skin was flushed, the head of his cock glistening from the precome gathering at the tip. As Hawk watched, Felix's hand began to move faster. Near his ear, Felix's breathing grew harsh and shallow. Distance echoes of arousal stirred to life inside of Hawk as Felix's hips started to jerk and come spurted out across his hand. Too late to help, yet he couldn't quite muster up the guilt he thought he ought to be feeling. 

A low, breathless chuckle fanned out over his ear. "Enjoy the show?" 

Gaze snapping up, Hawk found Felix watching him through heavy-lidded eyes, a satisfied smirk curving his lips. "Ah," he tried gamely, hoping something intelligent and charming would follow. 

It did not. Nothing did. But Felix didn't appear to mind. "Perhaps we should do that again sometime." 

"I would hope so," Hawk replied with a small laugh, slightly embarrassed at having been caught staring. "I enjoy what you can do with your mouth." 

"Not that." Lifting his come-slick hand, Felix smeared a streak of it across Hawk's lips. He licked it off automatically, his desire to taste him so strong that he didn't wait for Felix to tell him to do it. Clearly, it was the right response, for Felix's smile took on a pleased cast. "I like watching you watch me. And if I can manage to keep my hands to myself, I'd like to do the same with you." 

Understanding now, Hawk tipped his head and pressed a kiss to the hollow of Felix's throat. "You know I'll do anything with you. Just give me a few minutes to rest first, all right?" 

Laughing, Felix swatted lightly at his chest. "Later. Irresistible though I know I am, we do have a meal to eat. Or have you become so insatiable that you've forgotten the lunch you prepared?" 

"You started it," Hawk retorted lamely, knowing it was a paltry comeback but too content and relaxed to care. 

Felix didn't seem to hold it against him. "In that case, you can start by pouring us both a drink." When Hawk sighed dramatically and tensed to sit up, Felix pushed him back down and laid his head against his chest. "In a few minutes, if you please. I'm rather comfortable at the moment." 

* * *

 Although Felix didn't have the same restless aversion to idleness that Hawk did, he wasn't content to spend his days lazing around their room in the tavern. At first, he'd combated boredom and the need to _do_ something by reading all of the books available for purchase or borrowing in the village. Not only did he find the pursuit enjoyable for its own sake, it also allowed him to surreptitiously learn about the world around him. A large portion of it was rubbish, of course. Novels like _Hard in Hightown_ were utter nonsense and not the least bit realistic. Yet even trashy romances were useful in the sense that they gave him insight, however skewed, into the climes and countries surrounding Ferelden. He was intelligent enough not to take the political and cultural commentary to heart, though it did give him something to think about and analyze for potential kernels of truth whenever he had nothing else with which to occupy his mind. 

Some books, on the other hand, were extraordinarily useful. A few tomes regarding the history of Ferelden, Orlais, and the Blights weren't too obviously biased and offered him considerable knowledge to which he hadn't previously been privy. Insofar as he was aware, anyway. Other books on herbal remedies and healing provided practical information he could put into practice immediately. 

And that was what had ultimately led to him lending a hand with Tomis, the village's old healer, and his apprentice Maelia. With no other mages in residence, those two were the closest Felix had to peers and when he was left to his own devices, he often gravitated toward their company. They were both quick-witted and clever. Tomis had a sly sense of humor Felix genuinely appreciated and Maelia could create some truly inspired recipes for poultices and healing salves. After a week spent mixing potions and experimentation with Maelia led to the discovery of a tonic that could considerably lessen the pain an ill or injured person might experience, he was offered a job with them. 

Initially, he'd believed that accepting such a position was a thoughtless, foolhardy thing to do. They weren't remaining in the village. It wasn't fair to deprive someone more qualified and reliable of a means to make a living. But Hawk had received with news with enthusiasm and had encouraged Felix to agree. After all, he'd reasoned, they would need the extra coin when they were finally on their way. 

Whenever _that_ happened to be. 

Once Marik's barn had been completed, another villager had requested Hawk's aid in planting his crops. When that task had been completed, there was a fence to mend, a well to dig, a sick cow that had needed round the clock care. The offers of odd jobs and requests for assistance never ended, likely because not only was Hawk a diligent and skilled hard worker, he was also personable and charismatic. People _liked_ Hawk and often sought him out for advice. A few nights a week, he was even training the local group of demon hunters how to better use their swords and fight so that the next time an incursion occurred, they would be able to more efficiently dispatch the intruders. 

Surprisingly, Felix found that he didn't mind the time Hawk spent with others. They saw each other daily, took morning and evening meals together with only the rare emergency—the butcher's daughter had accidentally cut herself one morning and Felix had had to rush out without breaking his fast to heal the wound before she lost her finger—causing one or the other to be absent. The nights were always theirs. And simply because they were often busy didn't mean that they never spent the day in one another's company. They often did. Once or twice, Felix had even deigned to help in the manual labor, though he preferred demonstrating fighting techniques during Hawk's training sessions and, when necessary, playing the role of the magic-slinging demon for Hawk and his students to practice vanquishing. 

That they must eventually leave the village had not been forgotten by either of them. They still spoke of it, and with their knowledge of the world expanding, they occasionally discussed possible places to flee when the time came. Across the Waking Sea to the Free Marches was one such option. Disappearing into the even further away Antiva or Rivain was another. They'd even considered going to Nevarra or Tevinter, since that was where Greta believed Felix originally came from, and both countries seemed like a viable refuge for a mage. Tevinter especially. 

But the urgency that had driven them into the village had been gradually abating. As the number of days grew without anyone questioning their identity or rumors of search parties attempting to find a wayward mage and templar, they became to feel more confident in their continued decision to linger. Never fully comfortable _._ Never truly _safe._ Just enough that they could relax a little and enjoy themselves, get to know themselves better than they could on the run.

They were both undeniably happier for it.

Bloomingtide was just beginning to cede control to Justinian on the evening that Felix, returning to the tavern for dinner after a day spent aiding a woman during a terribly difficult birth, happened across Hawk in the middle of industriously tearing out the fence around one of the abandoned properties. He was stripped down to his trousers, sweat glistening on his sun-reddened—the man refused to tan, regardless of how much time he spent walking around without a shirt on during this "summer" Ferelden was having—skin and his hair tied back at the nap of his neck, as he fought with a stubborn post that refused to let itself be pulled from the ground. Felix watched the show for a minute or two, allowing himself the luxury of openly watching the interplay of muscles across Hawk's back since he was standing behind him and couldn't be seen, before curiosity finally got the better of him. 

Clearing his throat in a meaningful way, Felix called out to him as he crossed the road. "What on earth are you doing, Hawk?" 

Although he doubted that Hawk knew he had an audience, so intent was he with wrangling the uncooperative piece of lumber, he didn't startle at hearing Felix's voice. He barely reacted at all, in fact. He just wrenched the post back and forth harder until finally, with a strange cracking sound, the thing came loose and he pulled it from the ground. It was, Felix thought with no small measure of wry amusement, far more visually appealing than such a mundane action ought to have been. 

Throwing the post to the ground, Hawk turned to face him as he absently wiped his hands on his trousers. "Is it not obvious?" he inquired, though his smile of greeting removed any trace of irritation the question might have held. 

"Oh, quite," Felix returned with a quirk of his lips. "You're becoming a rather accomplished dragon-slayer, I see." 

Hawk laughed at that and was still laughing as he wiped his forehead off on his forearm. Felix watched the dirt on his arm get smeared across his face with a kind of vaguely fond exasperation. Honestly, the man was a disaster. An attractive one, yes, but a disaster all the same. Felix had no idea what to do with him sometimes. 

"I finished helping Danil bring in the supplies early," Hawk explained after the chuckles had faded. "And I thought—"

"That you would single-handed fix up the village in your spare time?" Felix finished for him, lifting his eyebrows.

"Nothing as ambitious as all that," he returned with a soft huff of amusement. "I've been past this place so many times since we arrived and it's yet to be looked after." 

In the vain hope that such a gesture might carry his meaning through the otherwise impenetrable fortifications of Hawk's often thick head, Felix transferred his gaze rather pointedly toward the property. The fence in question, with its broken rails and missing sections, was just the start of the problem. The yard hadn't been cared for in months and the grass had grown wild, resembling a meadow more than a lawn around a residence. And the house was in shambles. Broken windows, part of the thatched roof missing, and the door was ajar. He didn't want to imagine what it looked like inside. There were probably rodents and other assorted pests living in it. 

"That might be because it's abandoned." Helpfully adding words to the gesture which had clearly missed its mark didn't seem to help either. Hawk was still wearing that look of bland incomprehension to his meaning. "Why waste your time on something like this when it serves no purpose?" 

"Simply because it's been abandoned by someone doesn't mean that it's impossible for another to find it and cherish it," Hawk returned easily, demonstrating once more that he was capable of randomly saying things that made Felix feel decidedly off-center despite the fact that none of it had anything to do with him. 

There was no help for it. He could either let on that he'd been affected by such an offhand remark or he could brush it off like it hadn't happened. 

Sniffing, Felix crossed his arms over his chest and leveled his best no-nonsense stare Hawk's way. "Well, _I'm_ hungry and I should like to see you before you disappear forever into the wilds of that house. Come have dinner. You can return to your charity case afterward." 

A grunt of agreement would have sufficed, but Hawk swept into a bow befitting a courtier paying homage to a king. "As your lordship requests," he said with unnecessary gravity. Though, as he straightened up, Felix caught him smiling. 

"My lordship requests a number of vitally important things," Felix returned with exaggerated arrogance. "I expect you to fulfill them all before the dawn comes."

Laughing again, Hawk stepped over to him, leaving his shirt and a few tools on the ground for a presumable pickup later, and slung his sweaty, dirty arm around Felix's shoulders. He glowered at him, already imagining the stains on his new shirt, but Hawk just grinned unapologetically at him. "Yes, Your majesty."

* * *

 "Isn't it great?"

From the doorway where he'd stopped and refused to budge, Felix scowled mutinously at him. "Absolutely not." 

"Felix," Hawk began slowly, lifting a hand to forestall an argument. 

It didn't work. Honestly, he should have known better than to try. 

"We can't _live_ here!" 

Hawk waved away his protest without giving it time to gain traction. "Of course we can. I spoke with the village council. No one's coming back to claim it." 

Felix heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Be that as it may, we haven't the money to afford it. And besides that, we—" 

"The council said that we're welcome to it after all the work I've done on it," Hawk interrupted, having already anticipated that point of disagreement and prepared a counter. 

It wasn't a spur of the moment idea. He'd been thinking about it since he'd started working on the old place. First the fence, which had been relatively easy to remove, and a bit of maintenance to get the yard under control. Then, when there were no other tasks or desires preying on his time, he'd tackled the house itself. Some of the coin he'd earned doing tasks around the village went to purchasing new windows. A few hours one Sunday were spent repairing the door. A weekend went to fixing the roof. After that, it was just cleaning up the inside. 

Admittedly, that had been a chore. He would never tell Felix, but there had been a family of fennecs living in the kitchen that he'd had to gently relocate out of doors. Some plants had taken root in the fireplace that had needed to be pulled. And he'd spent about four hours sweeping the floors, removing cobwebs, and cleaning up the salvageable furniture. But he'd put all the work into it _before_ inviting Felix over to see his progress and pose the idea. He wasn't stupid. He'd known going into it that it was going to be an uphill climb to get him to agree to it. 

Felix had evidently foreseen the direction of his argument, because after only a slight pause, he switched tacks. "It could be the palace in Denerim and it wouldn't matter, Hawk. We can't _settle_ here."

"Can we settle anywhere?"

"Yes! Of course we can." Lines of consternation appeared on Felix's brow. "But not—It's too close. We need to put more distance between us and those looking for us." 

"They've yet to find us," Hawk disagreed gently. "And we've been here for months. If they haven't found us by now, will they? How can we know for certain?"

He knew that Felix liked it there in the village. It wasn't an elaborate city with huge libraries and other mages, and perhaps he would have preferred that, but Hawk _knew_ that he was happy. Felix had friends in the village. He was respected as both a mage and a healer. His magical prowess had grown considerably and he was almost as deadly wielding his staff now as Hawk was his sword. They were running out of space in their room in the tavern to keep all of the personal possessions they'd acquired. Clothes, books, miscellaneous knick-knacks and accessories. There was no way they'd be able to take it all with them when they left the village without acquiring a wagon to transport it.

They'd been living as if they were staying for weeks. Hawk didn't believe it would harm them to commit to it. At least for a little while. If the time came to move on, then so be it. They would lose only slightly more with a home than they would lose without it.

"Can we know that they won't?" Felix shot back, but there wasn't enough iron in his tone to convince Hawk that he was _truly_ opposed to the idea. 

"No. We can know nothing of the future for certain." Stepping away from the center of the common room, Hawk joined him in the doorway. He rested his hands on Felix's shoulders, subtly nudging him to look at him. "But I do know that I am happy here. I know that you are as well. Why should we not enjoy that happiness while it is ours for the taking? What purpose is there to turn our backs on it when it isn't necessary to do so?"

He didn't look away as Felix searched his eyes or attempt to conceal his earnest desire to give it a try. Felix looked his fill and Hawk did the same. There was something in those stormy grey depths that Hawk thought might have been longing. Agreement, even. Though there was also an ample amount of caution.

"I just..." Felix began, only to fall silent before he finished his thought. He frowned, his expression as troubled as his eyes were conflicted.

Gently, Hawk squeezed his shoulders. "If you truly have no wish to stay, then we shall not. I would never demand we remain anywhere that made you unhappy. But if you do, if you _are_ happy, Felix, then it's worth it to try." Even against an army of miscreants and monsters, if that was what searched for them. Quietly, he added, "Having a home is worth fighting for."

For a long time, Felix stood there silently, still beneath his hands. Hawk said nothing more, unwilling to press any further and risk forcing him into a choice he didn't wish to make. Eventually, after Hawk had come to believe that he would say no, Felix exhaled a deep sigh.

"Does it need to be _this_ decrepit dump?" As irritable and disgusted as he sounded, there was something unmistakably hopeful in his eyes.

Hawk gave him a tentative smile. "Would you prefer I restore one of the other properties?"

It was obviously a joke, but he wasn't entirely insincere. If Felix genuinely wanted something else, he would put in the time and effort to restore it to his satisfaction. What else more important had he to do with his time? _Their_ home would not be theirs if either of them was displeased with it.

Listing forward, Felix slid his arms around Hawk's waist and rested his head against his chest. This time when he sighed, Hawk could feel it shake through his whole body. "I suppose, since you went through all of this trouble with this one, that I can survive it." Somewhat mournfully, he added, as though he were inconsolable, "Somehow."

As much as it sounded like grudging agreement, Hawk knew that it wasn't. Felix wanted this too. They both did. And if his affected reticence to admit it was based on a fear of losing it, then Hawk simply had to ensure that he didn't.

And he would. By the Maker, he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long for me to update! Chapter 12 will be up next week.


	12. Chapter 12

 

"After all the time we spent walking through the wilderness, I fail to understand why you choose to do it in your free time," Felix grumbled in disgust as he narrowly avoided a mishap with a low hanging branch.

Up ahead, irritatingly illuminated by a shaft of sunlight like some kind of forest spirit, Hawk was nimbly jumping from one granite boulder to another, oblivious to his better half's harrowing predicament. Presumably, he was searching for this "beautiful lake" he'd been talking about since his discovery of it two days ago, but from where Felix was in the midst of trying not to lose his balance on rocky terrain, it looked like he was showing off. Under different circumstances—the kind of circumstances that included an airy veranda, a comfortably cushioned chair, and a beverage of the fermented grape variety—it might have been entertaining to watch his display of athleticism. At the moment, however, Felix rather wanted to set his hair on fire. 

It wasn't that he disliked accompanying Hawk on his adventures. He did. Spending time with Hawk was usually the highlight of Felix's day, whether they did something genuinely exciting or simply sat around playing a game on the worn chessboard Hawk had acquired from Reingard. But life in civilization had taught Felix one fundamental truth about himself: he _hated_ spending a lot of time wandering around pointlessly outdoors.  

Traveling to a destination was tolerable. Especially if that destination was reached prior to having to set up camp for the evening. Spending a leisurely hour or two outside soaking up the regrettably infrequent warmth of the day was also acceptable. But traipsing around in the forest, tripping over roots and partially hidden rocks, dodging spiderwebs and getting dirty, for no real reason other than for some misguided notion of _fun_ was a miserable chore no matter how attractive the company was.   

"We're almost there!" Hawk called back to him, utterly ignoring what a valid, inarguable point he'd just made. 

And they weren't _almost_ there. It took them about another quarter hour to find the damn place. But unfortunately for the backlog of complaints he was just itching to unleash once they reached their destination, it turned out to be worth the trouble. 

The lake was situated between two large hills, not so enormous that it disappeared from sight but certainly big enough that a person could spend considerable time rowing a small boat around it. There were large rocks along its shore with veins of iridescent flecks that glistened whenever the sunlight caught them just so. The water was clear and clean and the whole thing was fed by a waterfall that poured down from a cliff—made of the same type of sparkly rock—that stretched about twenty feet above them. 

Hawk was standing near the shore, grinning like he was personally responsible for the lake's existence. "Isn't it a sight?" 

Personally, Felix thought _Hawk_ was a sight, with his hair in windblown disarray around his head, his shirt open in an effort to alleviate the heat of the late summer afternoon, and that ridiculously handsome smile transforming his face. He couldn't tell him so, however. Too many compliments and the man was likely to become an insufferably smug arse. But he thought it and let his gaze linger on him longer than was strictly necessary. 

In his satisfaction, Hawk appeared not to notice the admiration with which he was being graced. Not wanting to draw attention to it, Felix sniffed and folded his arms across his chest. "I suppose it's all right," he said, feigning disinterest. 

Instead of deflating at the lackluster response, Hawk's smile transformed into a grin so wicked that Felix took an involuntary step backward. "Perhaps you simply need a closer look." 

It didn't take Hawk's purposeful advancement to clue him in to what he intended. 

"Don't you dare," Felix warned him severely, lifting a hand in a gesture of warding and stepping back a pace. 

Undeterred, Hawk kept coming. Felix shook his head, scowling as fiercely as possible, but to no avail. Just as Hawk reached for him, he lunged to the side, bolting around him. The terrain wasn't as stable as he would have liked and Hawk, agile bastard that he was, spun around to face him and made another grab. Instinct kicked in, buoyed by a horrifying vision of being tossed into the lake, and quite unintentionally, Felix's magic responded. 

It hit Hawk hard, throwing him backward so violently that _he_ was the one who went flying into the water. Felix watched it through wide eyes, hand absently pressed against his mouth in a half-arsed attempt to conceal his smile. It took every bit of willpower he had not to make a sound, though once Hawk surfaced, hair soaking wet and plastered to his head, his composure broke and no amount of stifling in the world could stop his laughter. The shocked expression on Hawk's face slowly melted as he caught up with what had just happened and before long he was laughing too, albeit more ruefully than Felix. 

"All right, I admit it," he said a moment later as he stood up, slicking his hair back out of his eyes. "I deserved that." 

"You absolutely did!" Felix agreed, still grinning.

Instead of getting out the water like Felix expected, Hawk tugged his sodden shirt off and threw it over to the shore. Hunching forward, he reached around under the water and eventually flung a boot over toward the shirt. A few seconds later, the other followed. 

Felix watched it all in bemusement. "What in the Maker's name are you doing?" 

Hawk shrugged with good-natured equanimity. "I'm already wet, aren't I? I might as well take advantage of it." 

 _Just like a farmer_ , Felix thought with mildly exasperated fondness, shaking his head. _How this man became a templar I shall probably never know._ Quite literally, in fact, since none of their memories had resurfaced over the months. It was bothersome, and they both wished that whatever they’d endured to make them this way would wear off or heal, but they were making new memories in place of the old, forgotten ones. _Good_ memories. And if the past was the price they had to pay for that, Felix thought that perhaps it wasn't so steep a cost in the end. 

Moving over to the pile of discarded clothes, he started sorting everything, spreading the shirt, and Hawk's trousers when they arrived nearby with a wet _plop_ , out on the ground to dry in the sun. The boots were probably a lost cause, but he stood them up and hoped for the best. If Hawk had to squelch his way back to the village, he only had himself to blame. 

When he rose and turned back to the lake, Hawk was already halfway across it, swimming through the water with what looked to be effortless ease. Felix watched him do it, one hand on his hip and the other shading his eyes, until he reached the far shore. There, he simply reversed course and swam back. He wasn't even winded when he came to a stop some distance away and stood there, water sloshing gently against his waist, beckoning Felix to join him.

Felix was feeling benevolent enough not to laugh outright at the ludicrous invitation, though that didn't prevent him from emphatically shaking his head. Refusing to take the rather blatant hint, Hawk insistently beckoned again. It might have gone on for some time, but against his better judgment, Felix eventually capitulated. There was something a little too irresistibly enticing about a most naked Hawk; not even the temperature of the water was able to repel him indefinitely. However, it _was_ far colder than he liked and he made certain that Hawk was aware of the sacrifices that he was making for him. 

They spent upwards of two hours in that lake, Felix's complaints notwithstanding. Chasing Hawk around in a joking attempt to drown him turned into leisurely swimming across the length and breadth of the lake and once they tired of that, swimming shifted to a rather relaxing quarter hour simply floating in the center of it. With the sun beating down on him and a sly application of magic to heat the water around him, Felix was so comfortable that, were he not floating in a lake in the middle of nowhere, he might have fallen asleep. 

As tempting as it was to take advantage of their state of undress and indulge in a bit of physical gratification, Felix did nothing but trade some kisses with Hawk and sneak a grope here and there. After they'd tired of being in the water, they found a comfortable bit of shoreline to lounge upon until they dried off. Felix, being an insightful man with more than a modicum of intelligence, had dry clothes warmed by the sun to slip into once they rose to dress. Hawk, being prone to episodes of boisterous foolishness, had relatively dry clothes and damp boots that made him grimace as he put his feet into them. Fighting off the smug smirk at the sight of his disgust proved to be a battle too far beyond Felix's ability to win, but Hawk retaliated with a serious enough threat to toss him into the lake after all that it didn't last very long. 

The shadows were beginning to lengthen with the slowly sinking sun by the time they set off back to the village. They were not so far out that it seemed likely they would still be wandering through the forest when darkness fell, but Felix took it upon himself to hustle Hawk along whenever it seemed as though he might be tempted to detour down some unexplored path. The man had a wanderlust that would have been impressive if it didn't tend to make an appearance at the most infuriatingly inopportune moment. 

By Felix's estimation, they were about three-quarters of the way when Hawk abruptly stopped and he nearly walked right into him. 

"Look there," Hawk said, forestalling the snappy remark with which Felix was preparing to blast him. He pointed toward a thicket of broad-leafed bushes. "What is that?" 

Unenthusiastically expecting to see a coterie of bandits lurking in the distance, Felix obligingly scowled in the direction Hawk was indicating. Yet there were no flashes of out of place metal buckles or leather jackets failing to camouflage the movement of people through the brush. There was just a small, lumpy brown blob moving just enough to register as something other than a shadow or a rock. 

"I have no idea," Felix replied with a shrug, less concerned now that it was apparent that it wasn't a threat. 

He was about to continue onward, even went so far as to take the next step, but Hawk just stood there observing the thing in silence. Felix shot him a look, confused by the persistent lack of forward momentum. Honestly, he ought to have known better than to wonder what in the Void the idiot was doing. 

"Oh, no, leave it!" Felix protested as Hawk changed direction and started toward the brush. "Don't—" But Hawk ignored him and didn't stop. He threw up his hands with a heavy sigh. "Or just go on, then. Get killed by demons and wild animals if you wish." 

No slavering beast exploded out of the bushes to devour Hawk. Nothing unseen grabbed him and yanked him out of sight. Felix was waiting for it, trying to decide if lightning or fire would be the appropriate response, but there were no dramatic consequences for Hawk's idiotic behavior. He reached the brush without incident, slowed, and after a few hesitating steps, crouched down to examine something on the ground. 

The possibility of disaster seemingly averted, Felix began to relax. 

"Felix!" Hawk suddenly called, startling a jolt of adrenaline into shooting through him. "Come here." 

Although there was urgency to the summons, it wasn't panicked and Hawk didn't appear to be in distress. Still, he wasn't an utter imbecile the way _some_ people were. Warily, Felix approached and peered over Hawk's shoulder, ready to respond with fire and lightning should it be warranted. Now that he was closer to it and had a clear view of it, he saw that it wasn't a blob. It was roundish in shape, yes, but the brown was fur and it was clearly— 

"It's a bear," Felix said, flatly unimpressed. 

Hawk wasn't paying attention to vocal cues; otherwise he might have realized that Felix wasn't overly thrilled by this new development. Because he was determined to dither on in ignorance, he didn't even glance over his shoulder, opting instead of nod his agreement of the assessment. "A cub." 

That really didn't make the situation any better. A bear cub, Felix knew with dark certainty, often came with a large, snarling, overprotective bear mother who had no qualms about clawing or biting the faces off of people too stupid to let her baby alone. 

"Which means the mother's around here somewhere." He was trying to be helpful, pointing it out like that, but Hawk's version of thanks was to reach out and touch the blasted thing. "So let's—" 

"It's injured," Hawk interrupted, and of course— _of course_ —he sounded concerned. "There. It's hind leg. Do you see?"

He did see it. The bear was trying to move away from them, but its back leg wouldn't support its weight and it kept losing its balance. Broken, possibly, or simply lame. It was difficult to determine whether the noises it was making were from the distress their presence was causing it or if it was in pain. At least for Felix. He wasn't an expert on bears and he didn't want to be. 

"All right, yes," he conceded. "But I don't..." Hawk finally glanced back at him, but the look he gave him was expectant, not confused. "No." Expectation started to turn into disappointment. Disliking it, Felix found himself actually defending his sensible idea against Hawk's nonsensical one. "I can barely heal minor injuries on people. I haven't the first clue how to heal animals." 

Having a home offered many benefits that fleeing for their lives did not, extensive experimentation with his magic chief among them, and Felix had done his best to learn the limits of his skill. Although he hadn't quite managed that, he had learned a number of valuable lessons. One of which was that healing was not his forte. He could do it in a pinch if there were no other alternatives and the injuries weren't severe, but he couldn't heal damaged organs, lost limbs, or fatal wounds. Not that he'd had the opportunity to test those assumptions, but what healing he'd successfully done had been superficial at best or already in the process of healing naturally. Anything worse than deep cut required the help of traditional healing. 

A broken leg, or worse, a leg that didn't function properly in the first place, was beyond the scope of his talent. 

Either Hawk didn't understand that, grossly overestimated his power, or merely didn't care about inconvenient truths. "What does magic care whether it touches a person or an animal?"

"Very philosophical." Felix rolled his eyes. "I'm certain that will comfort me greatly when it bites my face off." 

Appealing to Hawk's desire to ensure his safety had no effect. "Try, Felix," he urged.

"Oh, for Andraste's sake..." Felix exhaled a deep breath of disgust. But he couldn't exactly tell him no. It _probably_ wouldn't hurt to at least try, and once he'd failed, Hawk could stop badgering him and they could get out of there before their luck ran out and the mother returned. 

In his defense, Felix did try to heal the unfortunate creature. He channeled as much magic as he could into it, seeking out the damage and trying to coax it to mend, but it was too much for him to accomplish. If he was correctly interpreting the sense he was getting, the bones of the bear's leg and foot were shattered. The outcome of a fall, perhaps. It was a painful injury, but not a permanent one. With care and patience, he was able to arrange the bones back where they seemed to go, but not even the strongest lattice of magic he could lay over the whole mess was enough to meld all of the pieces back into a repaired, usable whole.

He did what he could for the pain, soothing damaged flesh and knitting the tears back together. When the bear's whimpers quieted, he could only assume that he'd accomplished that much. 

"That's the best I can do," he announced as he settled back on his heels, withdrawing the remains of the magic and dispelling it. "It isn't going to be able to walk and when it tries, it's just going to undo everything I've done."

"It's all right," Hawk assured him. "It's a start."

"Start of—No!" Too late was that protest, for Hawk was already hefting the bear into his arms. "What are you doing? Hawk!" 

"Its mother isn't here." Hawk turned to him, the bear cradled in his arms. Surprisingly, it was not trying to bite him, even if it probably ought to have been. Felix could see his hand moving almost absently over its back, running up and down its spine. "If she was, she would have come for it by now." 

"So you're just going to what, take it with us?" Words failed him then. They just dried up in his mouth despite his rising desire to make the hopeless attempt to shout sense into him. _Surely you can't be serious._  

Hawk nodded. "For now. Until it's healed." 

"You don't know anything about bears!" 

Logic fell on deaf ears. Hawk was already moving off away from the brush, back toward the path to the village. Felix stared after him for a few seconds, nearly agape at the sheer stupidity of what was occurring, before he could get himself into working order and follow. 

"I'll learn," Hawk told him, sounding halfway to confident, once he'd caught up. "Caring for livestock seems easy enough. How hard can this be?" 

* * *

According to everyone in the village, winter came early that year. Autumn had not yet run its course, yet one evening late in Harvestmere, a storm rolled through and brought with it nearly a foot and a half of snow. Hawk woke to overcast skies and a blanket of white as far as the eye could see. It was a beautiful sight, one that practically demanded he put on his coat and boots and head outdoors, but Felix took one look at it, drew the bedclothes up over his head, and declared that he wouldn't be getting out of bed at all. Considerable coaxing and mugs of steaming tea eventually succeeded in luring him out, but even bundled in multiple layers, he didn't enjoy the snow as much as Hawk did.

Or Cub. 

The bear cub—called Cub despite Felix's protests that if they were going to name the beast, they ought to at least call it something more inspired—had thrived under Hawk's care. Felix had grumbled his way through the first two weeks, but he'd been there to provide what healing he could and more than once Hawk had glimpsed him sneaking a bit of meat and fruit out to him. When they'd heard the news, the villagers had been wary and quite a few of them had cautioned Hawk against placing too much trust in a wild animal, but Cub eventually won over even his staunchest detractors by not eating any of the neighbors, their dogs, or their crops. Once his leg had healed, Hawk had turned him loose at the forest's edge, but he'd returned to the house the next day and afterwards spent more time lazing around the property than he did exploring the wilds. 

Such was the case during that first snowy morning. 

Hawk had barely gotten started on clearing a path to the road when Cub came barreling around the side of the house and knocked him onto the ground. They wrestled in the snow together for so long that Felix eventually came out to chase him back to work. After lunch, he managed to convince Felix to accompany him on a walk and they spent the better part of the afternoon strolling through the village. By then, the ins and outs of the village had become a familiar sight, but covered in snow, it was like seeing it for the first time all over again. 

At some point in the middle of that walk, Hawk happened to glance over at Felix and caught him looking out over a stand of snow-covered trees. There was nothing remarkable about the moment. Hawk could only see Felix's face in profile, yet even so there was nothing different about it. His moustache was as neat as ever and the side of his head was as closely shaven as it had been that morning after they'd encountered each other, sans memories, in the wood. But like with the village, seeing him in that instant was like catching a glimpse of something brand new. 

And it was then that he knew that Felix was the man he wanted to marry. 

It was almost a full month before he did anything about it. Initially, it was because he couldn't trust his knowledge of the proper customs surrounding marriage and spent a good week circuitously making inquiries of the villagers. Finally, Greta caught wind of what he was doing, sat him down, and they had a long, frank discussion about what he was actually after. Then, once he knew what was expected of a person who was proposing for love instead of duty, it simply took time to implement. Hawk didn't like to do things by half-measures; if he wasn't willing to cut corners planting Felix's herb garden, he wasn't going to take short cuts with this either.

The first step was to visit Maelia. The village wasn't rich or large enough to have the sorts of shops and establishments that so many of the more worldly residents said were available in the larger cities. Places like Denerim, Val Royeaux, Antiva City, Kirkwall, and Minrathous were said to have anything one might wish to purchase, if one had the coin with which to do so. In comparison, options in the village were vastly more limited. And that was what made Maelia so valuable. 

She was a trader who frequently traveled to far off places Hawk had never heard of, much less visited himself, and brought back exotic goods for sale and trade. Hawk had spoken with her a number of times since his arrival in the village, though he could not claim they were anything more than friendly acquaintances. She simply wasn't around often enough for a true friendship to form. But she _was_ going to Orzammar, and after listening to his explanation of what he wanted and why, she agreed to help find what he needed. 

While he awaited her return, Hawk did the rest of the work, making arrangements and gathering needed supplies on the sly. Felix appeared to be none-the-wiser, never remarking on his vague statements of "helping out a friend" whenever he needed to excuse himself from his presence, and he wanted it to stay that way. The surprise, Hawk thought, was as important as the presentation, even if it wasn't necessary. 

It was only after everything was ready that Hawk encountered an even greater challenge: trying to decide on _when_ to propose. 

According to Greta, any moment save for the most traumatic and upsetting might suffice. And often, she'd added, in the case of arranged marriages, the proposal _was_ the upsetting incident. However, Hawk didn't want sufficiency. He sought something far more elusive: perfection. It wasn't realistic—he was pragmatic enough to know that he couldn't control everything and no matter what he finally chose, once it was done he would later discover a manner in which it could have been done better—but he felt it was important to achieve something as close to perfection as he was capable. Felix deserved that. 

In the end, after what felt like an eternity of deliberation, Hawk realized that he was being a fool. The answer was simple. He was just making it more complicated than it needed to be. 

* * *

_Maker take this weather_ , Felix thought as he knocked his snow-covered boots against the doorstep prior to entering the house. _It's absolutely atrocious. We should have continued on until we found a warmer place to settle down. How do these people live like this?_  

It seemed as if it had snowed every day since the official start of winter. It hadn't. There had been a few cloudless days since the season began, though the feeble strength of the sun's rays wasn't nearly enough to penetrate the heavy cold that had fallen over the land. But it snowed more than it didn't and Felix was getting sick of it. No matter how many layers he wore whenever he had to leave the house, which despite the miserably low temperature was practically every day, it was never enough. He still arrived at his destination chilled to the bone, his fingers icy and stiff even inside the wooly confines of his thick gloves. 

Wondering if it was possible to convince Hawk to uproot their life, pack up the ridiculous bear cub, and move elsewhere, he opened the door, took one step over the threshold, and stopped, bewildered at the sight that greeted his eyes. The door remained open at his back, forgotten in spite of the icy wind blowing snow inside behind him. 

There was a goat standing on the dining table, absently chewing on what appeared to be the remains of a dishcloth. Another was rubbing its head against the arm of the couch, contentedly scuffing up the wood. As he watched, a third came around the corner with something that looked suspiciously like his best shirt in its mouth and Hawk close on its heels. He was so busy trying to wrest the garment from it and cursing under his breath that he appeared not to notice that he had company. 

Felix watched the tableau for a few more seconds before his ability to contain himself failed. "Am I interrupting?" he asked lightly, arching his eyebrows in a picture of polite inquiry. 

The goat absconding with his shirt didn't stop, but Hawk immediately froze in place. Then, ever so slowly, he turned to look at him. There was an odd expression on his face that Felix couldn't name, like horror, mortification, and frustration had collided and become so entangled that they couldn't be separated back into their component parts. 

When it became obvious that Hawk was struggling, Felix came to his rescue. "I can come back?" he offered helpfully, tipping his head back toward the door. 

Hawk sighed so heavily in response that Felix briefly feared he might collapse from it. He ran a hand over his hair and then began to rub at the back of his neck, the pale, pinched cast to his face shifting to something hangdog and miserable. "This isn't how I wanted this to go," Felix heard him mutter under his breath. 

Although he was still confounded by what was happening in his house at present, Felix recognized a look of distress when he saw one and took pity on Hawk. He stepped further inside and shut the door. A brief survey of the interior did nothing to shed light on anything. In fact, it only got worse. From the new angle, he could see shards of broken crockery on the kitchen floor and what appeared to be a large pile of wheat propped up in the corner. 

Unlike Hawk, Felix wasn't the least bit interested in farming and made absolutely no attempt to learn the art. However, he wasn't completely daft and he knew with certainty that one did not house one's goats _in one’s home_. Perhaps, he decided, that was where to start trying to unravel the tangle of confusion. 

"Would it not have been better to house your goats outside?" he asked, careful to keep anything that might be interpreted as accusation out of his voice. "I'm sure one of the neighbors would lend you space in their barn until you had a proper one built."

Because despite Hawk's apparent love of doing terribly mundane outdoor manual labor, he hadn't yet built a barn on the property. He _had_ spent a few days over the summer constructing a large shed to house tools and such—Felix rarely entered the place, not wishing to be unfairly roped into some filthy and foul-smelling task he thoroughly did not want to do—but it wasn't nearly large enough to house one goat, to say nothing of three. _Why he bought_ three _of the blasted things is beyond me._  

"They aren't mine," Hawk said, moving over to the destructive menace still trying to get a little too cozy with the couch and pushing it away. "They're yours." 

In the silence that followed that pronouncement, Felix stared at him, certain that he'd heard him incorrectly. They were definitely _not_ his goats. He was adamant about the veracity of that knowledge. Not only had he never purchased anything that might be even remotely misidentified as a goat, he had no desire to care for other living creatures. Looking after himself and Hawk was challenge enough. 

"I don't have goats," Felix told him firmly, once he'd gotten over his abject shock and was able to form coherent sentences. 

Strangely, for no reason he could fathom, Hawk decided to argue the point. "Yes you do." Felix opened his mouth, thinking it might behoove him to try something a little more forceful and decisive, but Hawk kept going. "I got them for you." 

That made even less sense than arbitrarily deciding the beasts belonged to him. Felix blinked, blinked again, and took a deep breath in a desperate bid for some small measure to stability in a world that had evidently gone mad without him. 

"Why would you—" Something struck his backside, distracting him from what he was asking. It happened again before he could turn and when he did, he saw the goat Hawk had been chasing, his shirt now twisted around its horns, stepping back to butt him in the arse for a third time. "Stop it!" He pointed a finger at it. "That is extremely rude, you uncouth monster." 

"Greta told me to," came a rather mournful sounding mumble from off to Felix's left. 

"What?" Sidestepping the goat, Felix sought refuge on the far side of the table. "Why—?" _No, no. That isn't going to do at all._ No doubt Hawk would parade out another nonsensical explanation in answer. Sighing, he rubbed at the bridge of his nose for a moment. "Start at the beginning, if you please." 

Although Hawk had managed to get the goat away from the couch, it hadn't ceased to be a nuisance. It wandered over to the side table near the wall, nosed around until it knocked over a vase of magically cultivated flowers, and proceeded to eat them. Hawk observed this with an expression of long-suffering embarrassment, then apparently gave up, because he covered his face with his hands. Exasperation kept Felix from laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the whole situation, but only just. 

Something that sounded vaguely like "I wanted to..." started to drift out from Hawk's hands, but it was such a garbled mess that Felix couldn't be sure. 

"Here," he interjected, beckoning toward the couch. "Sit down. I’m quite confident that the beasts can destroy the house whether we're watching or not." 

Hawk groaned, but he did as he was told. Felix joined him, and after a few seconds of pained silence, he tried again. Without his hands muffling his words, it was significantly easier to understand this time. "I want to marry you. And while I know there are certain customs that need to be followed, I wasn't confident I remembered what they were. I asked those in the village for advice on what to do and Greta told me that all marriage proposals must include a dowry. Three goats and a sheaf of wheat, she was very emphatic that I didn't insult you by providing less. So I—" 

He tried. Maker help him, he tried to be silent and let Hawk speak without interruption. But what he was hearing was simply too outlandish to bear. He couldn't have kept his mouth shut if his life had depended on it. 

"I'm sorry, I just—Am I hearing this correctly?" Felix tried to keep his voice even, but there was just too much disbelief in it to make that feasible. "You want to marry me and in order to communicate this, you gave me goats?" 

"And wheat," Hawk hastily added, pointing toward the pile of the aforementioned wheat in the corner of the room. 

"And wheat," Felix echoed a little dully, bewildered all over again. It took a few deep breaths, but he managed to snap out of it. "What in Andraste's name am I supposed to do with that? Bake bread?"

From the way Hawk stared at him, it was obvious that he hadn't considered that. "Well..." 

Felix gestured toward the trio of animals making a wreck of the interior of their home. "Or goats, for that matter. I don't know a damn thing about goats."

"No, but—"

"Hawk." Reaching over, Felix caught his face between his hands and refused to say anything further until Hawk met his eyes. "I don't require livestock and crops to be enticed into marrying you. All I need is you." He gave it a second, wanting to let it really sink in, before allowing a wry quirk to twist the corner of his mouth upward. "And for you to get the goats out of the house."

"Do you mean that?"

"Oh yes, quite. I’d prefer _not_ having to replace everything we own." 

Hawk snorted. "That isn't what I meant." 

Rolling his eyes, Felix tipped his head closer to lay a brief kiss across his lips. "Foolish man, of course I'll marry you." As fortune would have it, his declaration was punctuated by one of the goats banging its head into the side of Hawk's thigh. Lifting his eyebrows, he nodded pointedly toward it. "But I've no wish to share you with those wretched things." 

"All right!" Hawk raised his hands in surrender, laughing in a way that sounded strangely relieved. "I'll get rid of the goats."

 _You great fool._ Felix was tempted to voice his thoughts out loud, but in the interest of not ruining the mood, or giving Hawk cause to harbor any more insecurity over the subject than he evidently already possessed, he held his tongue. _Did you truly expect me to say no?_  

But he had to ask something else. Sarcastic comments to the contrary, Hawk wasn't an idiot. "Why did you bring them inside in the first place?" 

"You don't enjoy being outdoors in the snow," Hawk replied with a shrug. "And Greta was very insistent that the dowry must be presented to the intended's family. Since that isn't possible, I thought it best to present them to you where you're comfortable." A shadow of sheepishness passed across his face. "They seemed so sedate before, I had no idea they'd act this way once they were inside." 

He might not have been looking forward to cleaning up the house, but Felix knew that all of it would make for an entertaining story to tell their friends later. It prevented him from feeling too cross with Hawk for listening so closely to Greta and causing a mess. Though to be honest to himself if to no one else, the proposal aided in that regard as well. 

"They destroyed the dinner I made for you," Hawk continued with a frown. "Although, I was able to save the wine from an untimely demise." 

Felix huffed a soft laugh. "Thank the Maker for that." 

"And I've something else for you." 

 _Maker help me_ , Felix thought as he watched Hawk rise from the couch and disappear into the bedroom. After the debacle with the goats, he was expecting another animal. Or perhaps more crops. Possibly a spinning wheel or something equally provincial and useless. But when Hawk emerged, he was carrying only a small cloth-wrapped bundle. 

He offered it to Felix without a word, who took it with a quick sideways glance. The cloth was some thick material not unlike suede and colored a deep, vibrant purple. He stroked the tips of his fingers over it for a moment, studying it in contemplative silence. When it failed to start moving on its own, he thought it safe to make a jest about it. 

"It isn't alive, is it?" 

That got a rueful chuckle. "No." 

Telling himself to _try_ to keep an open mind about whatever it was, Felix pulled back the corners of the cloth. Inside was a coil of gold that, upon closer inspection, turned out to be a cunningly crafted bangle in the shape of a serpent. The faceted green stones set into the head for eyes caught the light of the fire and spat it back in glittering sparks. He stared at it in astonishment, momentarily at a loss for words.

Looking up from it, Felix opened his mouth but he couldn't get the question out. His throat simply wouldn't cooperate. 

Hawk seemed to know what he was trying to say, because he didn't hesitate to respond. "Orzammar. Maelia was visiting and I asked her to inquire if one of their craftsmen could make it for you." 

Felix turned it over in his hands, studying it with a disconnected sense of dreamlike unreality. Each scale was painstakingly carved into the gold and those stones had to be worth a fortune. The kind of fortune that neither he nor Hawk possessed. "But how...?" 

From the corner of his eye, he saw Hawk casually roll one shoulder. "She said she was able to get a deal on it." 

 _A deal? Does she have a king's ransom tucked away somewhere?_ He couldn't actually ask the questions he was thinking. It might sound ungrateful if he did, or possibly like he didn't like the gift, and nothing could be further from the truth. He adored it. He just couldn't fathom how someone from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere could talk a miserly _dwarf_ into parting with something as valuable as this obviously was. 

"Why a snake?" he asked instead, looking at Hawk with curiosity. Ever so slightly, he smiled. "Why not a goat?" 

Hawk grinned one of those disgustingly attractive grins at him. "You remind me of a snake. Intolerant of the cold. Always burrowing under the blankets for warmth and basking in the sun." The grin turned rakish. "And I thought gold would look good on you." 

Shaking his head, Felix slid the bangle onto his wrist and considered it. Privately, he agreed with Hawk. Gold _did_ look good on him. "Goats. You procured _this_ for me and then thought you needed _goats_ to convince me to marry you." 

He spread his hands, palms outward. "I didn't want to give you cause to find fault with the idea." Felix stared at him so hard that after a few seconds, he cleared his throat uncomfortably and added, "I admit it didn't go quite the way I had planned." 

That might have been the understatement of the Age. In a fit of benevolence, Felix opted to let it pass unremarked upon. Rising to his feet, he closed the distance between them and slowly ran his hands up Hawk's chest. When he reached his shoulders, he stopped, gripped them firmly, and used that hold to lever himself closer. 

"Get rid of the goats, Hawk," he told him quietly, mouth a hairsbreadth above Hawk's lips. He looked up at him through his lashes as his voice dropped into a lower register. "Then get in here. We'll clean up the house later." 

 _Much_ later. 

* * *

Perhaps it was foolish to believe that he would feel somewhat different now that he was betrothed, but when Hawk awoke the next morning, that was precisely what he expected. Yet everything was exactly as it had been every morning since they'd acquired the house. Light streamed in through the windows; this particular morning, it was bright, suggesting a relatively cloud-free sky. Felix was pressed up against his side, arm draped over his waist and one leg slotted in between both of Hawk's, visible more as a blanket-covered lump topped with some messy hair than as a person. The neighbor's roosters were crowing periodically, intermingled with the barking of someone's dog. 

The world had neither stopped nor marked the impending change in Hawk's life.

As he lay there, allowing himself the luxury of waking at a leisurely pace, he considered his own feelings on the matter. _He_ didn't feel very different either. Knowing that, barring a tragedy of some sort, he had mornings like this one to look forward to for the rest of his life certainly made him happy. But he didn't feel older or wiser or more responsible than he already felt. And the events of last evening hadn't shaken any memories loose from the deep recesses of his mind during his slumber. 

All in all, it felt like a perfectly ordinary day. Hawk marveled that such a thing could be even as he embraced it. Life might not have been ideal—the continued lack of memories of who he'd been and the knowledge that they might never be truly safe hung like a shadow over him, ignored yet never forgotten—but he didn't have any major complaints. He was happy. Felix was happy. Whatever strange ailment he possessed, whether it was truly lyrium withdrawal or something else entirely, rarely affected him now. The future was no longer as bleak as he'd once believed it to be. 

Stifling a yawn so as not to wake Felix, Hawk set his hand atop the one on his abdomen, closed his eyes, and settled in for just a little more sleep. There was nothing pressing to be done that day. An hour or so of idleness wasn't going to hurt anything. 

Not even when that single hour melted into three. 

Hawk overshot his original estimation by dozing for an additional hour and a half, only to be waylaid from rising by Felix waking and offering a more tempting diversion. Eventually, awaiting chores and the insistent sound of claws scuffling at the front door in search of food pulled them both from the bed. Felix offered to make them breakfast in a transparent bid to avoid going outside into the snow to see to the animals, but Hawk accepted with a laugh and set to work.

He delivered a platter of vegetables and venison to Cub, who had eschewed hibernation for the promise of an easy meal whenever he came to call, and then trudged off to the neighbor's barn to feed the goats.  

In retrospect, Hawk had to concede that it had been a stupid thing to do. He knew that Felix had no interest in tending to animals or baking. Even when he'd purchased everything necessary to fulfill the dowry requirement, he'd known that Felix wasn't going to be overjoyed to have any of it. But he'd wanted to do it right, both because he believed that Felix deserved a proper proposal and because he hadn't wanted anyone to find fault with it. Mucking up the procedure and having a Revered Mother refuse his request to marry them because of it was unconscionable.

Thankfully, Felix's obvious appreciation of the bracelet more than made up for the embarrassment of three-quarters of the dowry eating the dinner Hawk had cooked and making a mess of the house. 

While the future of the goats remained in question—Hawk was still undecided about whether he ought to sell them or build a place to house them and keep them—Felix had been adamant that he get rid of the wheat. Under no uncertain terms was he going to spend all day grinding it into flour, he'd said rather emphatically late last night, and he wanted it gone before anyone got any foolish ideas. So after feeding the goats and cleaning out their stall, and then visiting for an hour with the neighbor who'd been kind enough to lend space in his barn, Hawk returned home to collect the wheat. 

Felix was gone by that point, off to his shift with Tomis, which gave Hawk no reason to dally about at home. He collected the wheat, wrestled it through the front door, and headed to the village baker. She was in the middle of rolling out a large sheet of dough when he arrived, though she quickly stopped to give him a hand with it. Initially, her demeanor was one of concern, proving to Hawk that word of everybody’s business really did travel quickly around the village, but after he hastened to assure her that Felix hadn't rejected _him_ , only the wheat, she accepted the gift with a wide smile and enthusiastic congratulations. On his way out, she pressed a honey-glazed sweetbun into his hand and refused his offers of payment. 

As it turned out, the sweetbun was so delicious that it didn't last even a quarter of the time it took him to travel to his next destination. Which, since he was already nearby, happened to be the Chantry. There, he waited approximately ten minutes before being ushered in to see the Revered Mother. He shared with her the good news that Felix had accepted his proposal and she confirmed that she would be available to conduct the ceremony at the end of the week.

There were a few other miscellaneous tasks Hawk needed to accomplish that day, but it was approaching noon by the time he left the Chantry and his stomach was none-too-subtly informing him that a single pastry wasn't going to be enough to satisfy it. He could have gone back to the house and prepared a simple meal by himself, but he had happy news to share and he wanted to be the one to relate the story of last evening's mishap to Greta before she heard about it from her third cousin's nephew's neighbor's wife. Not to mention, he'd worked up a mighty thirst hauling that wheat around and Greta's apple cider was just the thing to quench it.

Perhaps due to the sunny, albeit briskly cold, day, the tavern was busier than Hawk expected it to be when he arrived. Nearly all of the tables were full and there were a number of people clustered around the bar. He didn't pay any of them much mind. Friendly though he was with most of the villagers, Hawk rarely stuck his nose into anyone's business. He wasn't one for gossip and because he enjoyed his privacy, he was content to give others theirs.

Claiming an empty space at the end of the bar, Hawk waved down one of Greta's serving girls and ordered a glass of cider, happy to nurse the drink until a place to sit opened up. It wasn't until he was nearing the bottom of the glass when one of the patrons rose from the center of the bar and departed. Hawk slipped over and took the vacated seat, polished off his cider, and signaled the girl for another. While he waited, he looked absently at the people around him.

To his left was a vaguely familiar man that, after thinking about it for a moment, Hawk placed as one of the farmers on the far outskirts of the village. He smiled a greeting at him, exchanged a few pleasantries, and then glanced to his right.

There was a dark-haired man standing close to a taller, equally dark-haired woman. They were conversing quietly to one another in tones that weren't urgent yet weren't terribly pleased either. Hawk didn't recognize the man or the woman, but when an icy tendril of unease slithered up his spine, he quickly dismissed the alarm as baseless paranoia. Strangers they might be, yet that didn't mean that they were definitely a danger to him or Felix.

Sneaking another look at them, Hawk noticed that they were wearing dusty, travel worn clothes. They had no packs about them or obvious weaponry and they appeared to be alone. _If we had been found, surely our enemies would have sent more than two unarmed people to capture us._

The man started to turn away from his companion and Hawk quickly looked at the bar, not wanting to be caught staring like a lout. However, he hadn't moved fast enough to fail to see that the man's ear tapered off to a point.  _Definitely travelers, then._ Because there weren't any elves currently residing in the village.

The serving girl brought over Hawk's second cider just as Greta came bustling out of the back room. She was headed toward the travelers, her attention focused solely upon them, but Hawk still lifted a hand in greeting.

"Greta!" he called, smiling at her as she looked swiftly in his direction. "A word when you've a moment." 

Her eyes narrowed in a way that Hawk wasn't expecting and she opened her mouth, but before she could say anything in return, the elf spun to face him, mouth agape and eyes so wide that Hawk couldn’t read his expression as anything but shocked disbelief.

" _Cullen?!_ "


	13. Chapter 13

 

"Any news?"

As she came to a halt beside him, Leliana shook her head. Her voice was soft and even when she followed it up with a quiet, "Nothing, Inquisitor."

Sighing, Mahanon turned away and let his gaze drift out across the mountains. As weary as he had quickly become of hiking through them, he couldn't deny that the Frostbacks were beautiful. Even now, the part of him that often felt trapped and uncomfortable in the large, crowded cities of the humans could appreciate the raw, untamed freedom that the snow-covered peaks represented. Unfortunately for the present, however, he wasn't much in the mood for appreciation of any sort.

It had been nearly two weeks since the disastrous attack on their encampment. In high spirits after having rid the Frostback Basin of the Jaws of Hakkon, none of them had expected to be waylaid by a vengeful remnant of the Venatori. The guards that had been tasked with watching over the rest of the camp's slumber had been swiftly killed and only one of the attackers had survived the initial assault, though he succumbed to his wounds shortly after the fighting had stopped and died refusing to divulge any information that might have been useful in retrieving their lost comrades.

What they _had_ been able to piece together was troubling enough. The Inquisitor had been the target, though whether the Venatori had meant to simply kill him or to incapacitate him in a more inventive way with some kind spell was unknown. The plan hadn't succeeded. Mahanon hadn't been alone in his tent like they'd obviously expected—the inability to sleep and the pervasive loneliness that had brought it about had caused him to seek the company of his best friend—and the attack was foiled. But not before both Dorian and Cullen had been lost in the confusion.

They weren't dead, on that point everyone was certain. Their bodies hadn't been among those who had fallen during the battle and after searching miles of forest surrounding the campsite, scouts found no sign of them. And just before he'd died, the captured Venatori had smiled spitefully and told Mahanon that he'd never find his friends again. He did _not_ say that they were dead.

In an effort to locate them, they had remained camped at the same location for three days. Search parties combed the woods and there was someone stationed at the camp at all times in case either of the men returned on their own. But the world wouldn't wait for the Inquisition to pull itself together. There were diplomatic tensions with Ferelden and Orlais that needed smoothed out. There had been rumblings of unrest in the west and unsubstantiated rumors of strange occurrences across the length and breadth of Thedas. Nothing as remarkable as the sky being torn asunder and certainly nothing that required the Inquisitor's attention. _Yet_. But they couldn’t remain camped out in the wilds indefinitely.

Eventually, they'd had to pack up and continue on their journey back to Skyhold. Mahanon had chafed under the necessity to do so and the duty that prevented him from haring off into the wilderness to look for them himself, but every step he took was grudging and he spent long minutes every day looking out over the land, as if his eyesight alone could peel back the greenery and the rock and reveal where his people had gone.

"We will find them," Leliana said into the silence that had fallen over them, drawing him out of his frustratingly useless thoughts.

Folding his arms across his chest, he frowned at the furthest mountain peak as if it were at fault for all of this. "I should be out there looking for them."

"We need you here," she told him gently. 

Glancing at her askance, Mahanon told himself to hold his tongue. That there was nothing he could say that could solve the problem and that carrying on like a petulant child would benefit no one. But he'd never _asked_ to lead the world's most powerful organization and he didn't have the heart of a diplomat. He was also tired, angry, upset, worried, and rapidly approaching the end of his tether. 

"Strange how when the world's ending, I've time to play messenger for everybody's minor problems and search the world over for trinkets, but now that it's not, I can't afford to search for my friends." It started off sarcastic, but by the time he'd finished speaking, his voice had become bitter and tired. So fucking tired.

Leliana placed her hand on his shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. "Thedas is not so large that they will be lost forever. My people will find them."

If anyone could do the impossible, he knew it was Leliana. But he'd lost so much already. That he might lose two of his closest friends on top of everything else was unthinkable. He wasn't a real chosen one. He hadn't been imbued with strength from Andraste and the Maker. He was just a mortal man and every man had his limits. 

"I know you're doing everything you can." He offered her the tiniest there and gone twitch of a smile. "I'm not blaming you. I just..." _I can't lose them, too_.

Leliana started to open her mouth to respond, but before she could do so, she looked sharply to the side. An instant later, Mahanon heard it too: the low rustle of feathers that heralded the arrival of one of her ravens. She held up her hand, and once the bird had alighted there, she took a message cylinder from its leg.

Comfortable though he was with animals of all sorts, there was still something fascinating to Mahanon about the way Leliana interacted with the ravens. There was a natural ease that existed between them, a human and not just one but _hundreds_ of birds, which would have been impossible to believe if he didn't witness it on a regular basis. Often he thought to ask her about it, but neither the time nor the opportunity ever seemed to present itself.

"According to this," Leliana began, looking up from the thin sheet of paper. "They have been sighted in the Hinterlands." 

Hoping for word though he had been every day since their disappearance, Mahanon still felt a jolt of surprise when finally he heard it. "Where?"

"Near Redcliffe. They arrived at the farm belonging to Hyndel's parents."

She looked to be about to continue, but Mahanon interrupted. "Who?"

"An elven mage you met in the Hinterlands before the Breach was closed," she reminded him. "If I remember the reports correctly, he was part of a cult worshiping it."

Now that she said it, Mahanon could vaguely remember him. A sick mother in need of a potion. Bloody fools worshiping demon-spewing rifts. A stubborn young man he’d practically had to shame into using some common sense. "Ah, yes. Go on. I apologize for the interruption."

"Cullen was injured, though he's healing well. But according to this, they are acting strangely."

The skin across the nape of his neck prickled in alarm. "Strangely how?"

Leliana shook her head. "It doesn't say." Her eyes scanned the paper again but whatever she was looking for, she apparently couldn't find it. "I'll request more information."

"Are they still there?"

"It sounds as if they are."

"Who do we have in the area?" Mahanon was already moving away from the edge of the battlement toward the door that would take him back into the keep. "Let's send them some help."

It sounded like a simple plan. Mahanon thought it was simple. Leliana thought it was simple. Even Cassandra reacted positively when he told her that their lost comrades had been found and that a small group of Inquisition soldiers were going to the farm to retrieve them. But for as uncomplicated as the plan was, it didn't go well at all.

Somehow, the soldiers failed to locate Dorian and Cullen. When they'd arrived at the farm, neither of the men was there. It looked as if they should have been, there were indications that they'd been there until very recently, but they were inexplicably gone. And along with that disappointing news came something far more disturbing. According to the elves who had spent time with them, neither Cullen nor Dorian appeared to know anything about the area or worse, who they were. Some of the questions they'd asked had rung very odd to the elves and the names they'd given them hadn't been their own.

Although it was possible that they were using aliases to protect their identity, not even Leliana could present the idea in such a way that it made sense to anyone gathered around the war table. They weren't in hostile territory. Cullen was even Fereldan, for Andraste's sake! There was no reason to conceal who they were and giving fake names only made it more difficult for the Inquisition to locate them.

Before disappointment had a chance to take root, another sighting came in the next day from Redcliffe. Encouraged by the fact that they'd taken lodgings and apparently meant to remain instead of passing through, another Inquisition delegation was sent to meet them. All for naught, it turned out, for they arrived to find Dorian and Cullen gone and a number of villagers with stories about their visit.

None of those reports made sense either. Cullen assaulting a blacksmith? Dorian asking questions of the healer that he ought to have known the answer to himself? Cassandra raised the question of whether it was possible they truly _had_ lost their memories somewhere and the rest of them were forced to concede that that was looking to be more likely than a deliberate and unfathomable attempt to travel in secrecy. The problem was figuring out how such a thing happened and what in the Void they were going to do about it. Had it occurred during the Venatori attack? Afterward? Had they sustained injuries or was the apparent amnesia magically induced?

With the Inquisition's most knowledgeable mages missing and those who remained at a loss, they could only hope that they managed to track Dorian and Cullen down before they managed to leave Ferelden.

* * *

"I'm still not sure what you expect me to do about it," Garrett said doubtfully, frowning across the table at Varric.

"Keep your eyes open. Talk to a few of your contacts." Casually rattling the ideas off, Varric gestured to Garrett's right with a negligent flick of his wrist. "Set the elf on their trail." 

Next to him, Fenris bristled slightly. "I am not a mabari, dwarf."

Varric took it with equanimity. "But you've got some magister-sense, right?"

Garrett didn't have to look at him to know what Fenris' expression would be. Nearly six years of relative happiness—the world might have been going to shit faster than Kirkwall had managed to do it, but at least they had been together— after the horrifying debacle in Kirkwall hadn't done much to diminish Fenris' hatred of Tevinter or the mages that called it home. Being asked to locate one for purposes other than to slit his throat was a little beyond the pale, even for Varric.

"I thought he wasn't a magister." There was an edge to Fenris' voice that hadn't been there a moment ago.

Varric shrugged dismissively. "Not technically. Does it matter? You hate Tevinter. You hate mages. He's a Tevinter mage." He gave his hand another twirl in Fenris' direction. "Surely that's enough to—" 

Fenris cut him off with a snort. Long exposure to the nuances of Fenris' moods and his methods of expressing them made Garrett pretty confident in his assessment that the sound contained a humorous note.

 _Still,_ he thought as he took a sip of his ale. _It probably wouldn't hurt for me to interrupt before this gets messy_. It was always a bad job when the diplomacy came down to him. He knew it. His friends knew it. What now comprised his family—Fenris, Carver, and Varric, whether the dwarf wanted to accept it or not— _definitely_ knew it. But sometimes, there just wasn't any help for it.

"In all seriousness," he began, clearing his throat and lowering his voice to an appropriate level of gravity. "I just don't see how—"

"The Inquisitor told me to ask around." Varric lifted his hands in a _what can you do?_ gesture. "See if any of my contacts heard anything. You're a contact." Then he smiled one of those winning smiles that said anyone stupid enough to buy it was going to get swindled. "And you're special. I figure if anyone could find them..." He let it trail off and raised his eyebrows.

Garrett looked at him for a moment in silence. It wasn't that he couldn't understand where Varric was coming from. The sense he'd gotten of the Inquisitor during his brief stint with the Inquisition had been that the poor bastard was a good guy who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Garrett could relate to that exceptionally well. But after that trip to the Fade and the ensuing argument with Fenris after he'd turned up at Weisshaupt to give him a piece of his mind for almost dying like a damn fool, he was _trying_ to stay out of trouble.

Getting involved in this sounded like a lot of trouble just waiting to happen.

He glanced over at Fenris, who either sensed it or merely knew him well enough to know that he was looking for a second opinion because he was already looking at him, and met his eyes. If there had been outright refusal in them, Garrett would have rejected the request. Not even for the Inquisitor would he force Fenris to deal with magisters if he didn't wish to do so. But there wasn't any refusal to be found. Fenris didn't look thrilled by the prospect of hunting down wayward Inquisition members, their status as possible magisters notwithstanding, but actual opposition was absent from his gaze. It was accepting, albeit somewhat wearily so.

Under the table, Garrett felt Fenris squeeze his knee and knew it for the reassurance that it was. Heaving a heavy sigh, he tipped his hand over, palm upward. "All right. We'll look into it."

Varric had the grace not to look _too_ smug about it. "That's all I can ask."

Even though Garrett knew he should leave it alone, he just couldn't help himself. It was a character flaw. He never knew when to shut up. "Is he really calling himself Hawke?"

All pretense of seriousness faded as Varric grinned. "Yep."

It wasn't like he and Cullen were on bad terms. Things had been a little strained there at the end during that battle with Meredith, but he hadn't contested Garrett's decision to walk away from the whole thing after she was dead. And while he'd been staying in Skyhold, they'd spoken quite a bit about the past and the present. Cullen had gone so far as to apologize to him for his behavior during his time as Knight-Captain and Garrett had accepted it with a forgiving clap to his shoulder. There was the potential for a burgeoning friendship there and had he not been thrown into the Fade and then immediately sent off to the Anderfels, Garrett would have pursued it without hesitation. But it wasn't like they were _close_.

"I wonder why," he murmured, reaching for his mug.

"Perhaps you flirted with him a bit too much," Fenris replied archly as he took a drink, nearly causing him to choke on his mouthful of ale.

Dissolving into a coughing, spluttering mess was not attractive in the least, but with Varric looking on a little too gleefully and Fenris doing his best put out husband impression, he couldn't head it off. Plus, that ale was doing its level best to strangle him. After a struggle to get himself in order, breathe properly, and get his ability to talk back, Garrett immediately set out to control the damage.

"I did not—" Fenris gave him a bland stare. "Okay, maybe a little." Garrett pointed a finger at him. "But that was _before_ I met you. Nothing happened."

He wasn't actually angry with him. Garrett knew when Fenris was pissed off at him for real. But he still glared at Varric for joining in on the heckling when he sided with him. "If Hawke starts straying on you, tell me. Bianca's got a bolt for his backside with his name on it."

In a dazzling display of maturity, he kicked Varric under the table. "Don't encourage him. And don't start making up some love affair that didn't happen, either."

Varric schooled his face into a picture of innocence. "Would I do that?"

As one, Garrett and Fenris replied, "Yes."

* * *

Growing up in Clan Lavellan meant that Mahanon didn't have much use for formality. Aside from respecting the elders and the leaders of the clan, there had been none of the rigidity that seemed so prevalent in human society. It had taken him considerable time and effort to adjust to all the rituals and scripted procedures that humans expected for even the most casual forms of contact and conversation. And he often still failed to observe them all, whether by accident or because he'd reached the end of his patience for the grandstanding and nonsense. Becoming the Inquisitor had done little to change his attitude on the whole charade, either.

So his personal policy was a simple one. If the door to his quarters was open, anyone—from the highest noble to the lowliest peasant—was welcome to come in and speak with him. If it was closed, it meant that he didn't want to be disturbed unless the world was ending again. But there yet remained some people who struggled to accept his informality. 

A polite rap of knuckles against wood echoed up from the doorway at the bottom of the stairs into his quarters. Seconds later, he heard Josephine's familiar voice drift toward him as she slowly made her way up the steps. It was, he knew, her unnecessary way of giving him extra time to decide that he didn't want to be disturbed. "Inquisitor, if I might have a moment?"

Mahanon looked up from the reports scattered across the top of his desk, a tentatively pleasant half-smile curving his lips. It faltered a moment later as she came into view and he caught sight of her expression. _It's bad news._

"I know that look," he said warily, bracing for the worst and hoping that it wouldn't be _quite_ as awful as he was expecting. "What is it?"

Josephine smiled in what she no doubt meant as reassurance. Mahanon's stomach made an impressive effort to plummet straight into the floor. "It's nothing." But that was a lie and they both knew it. "Well," she amended with a faint sideways tilt of her head. "It isn't anything worse than what you've already faced." Her hesitation then was damning. "I think."

Groaning, Mahanon gave up pretending to be the dignified leader of the Inquisition that everyone who hadn't met him assumed that he was and buried his face in his hands. "Now what?" he asked, not caring how muffled the question was.

Josephine delivered bad news to him on a somewhat regular basis. If she couldn't decipher his words amidst the groans of dismay that usually accompanied them by now, then there was no help for her.

With all of the straight-backed self-possession of a diplomat who never had to personally put out all of the fires that Thedas seemed determined to light upon itself, Josephine delivered the news. "A delegation from Tevinter has arrived."

A deluge of vicious cursing filled his thoughts, but Mahanon managed to refrain from voicing any of it by biting the inside of his lip. He'd been brought up not to behave like a drunken sailor—cousin Ellana had encountered one once in a tavern near Cumberland and had entertained the children with all the colorful oaths he'd taught her until the Keeper caught wind of it and took her to task for it—in front of ladies. Besides which, it was all in Elvish anyway. Josephine probably wouldn't have understood most of it.

"From Tevinter?" he echoed dumbly. "Why?" Then, with wary dread, he asked, "Who is it?"

Josephine didn't grimace. She was too well-bred for that. But Mahanon could see it in her eyes and before she said the words, he knew. He just _knew_. "Dorian's father."

"Is here."

She nodded. "Yes."

The dread Inquisitor didn't beg, but oh, how he would have been willing to start if it would have turned Dorian’s father into literally anyone else from Tevinter. "Please tell me you're joking."

There was visible sympathy in Josephine's eyes as she said gently, "I can do that, but I'm afraid I would be lying."

"I don't suppose there's another Breach opening anywhere?" Mahanon looked at her hopefully. "Or a civil war? A Blight? Someone up in Churneau lost an earring and they need me to find it? Anything that requires my attention elsewhere? Anywhere at all?"

Now she smiled, clearly trying not to laugh. "I'm afraid not."

" _Ugh_." He rubbed at his head, not sure if he was trying to rub away the onset of a headache or encourage one so that he could claim illness and not leave his quarters for the duration of this unwelcome visit. _Why isn't anything going right this week?_ He sighed morosely. "All right. I'll just..."

He made a vague gesture that could have meant anything, but Josephine interpreted it a bit more accurately than he would have liked. "If you try to slip out the window, I will have to inform Cassandra."

That threat earned her a disgruntled scowl. "That's just cruel, Josephine." One more groan for good measure, then he pushed himself to his feet. "Fine. I'll go deal with it now. Hold a nice funeral for me if he kills me, would you?"

She wasn't taking him seriously. If she had been, she wouldn't have grinned at him like she did. "Of course, Inquisitor."

All of his futile attempts at levity notwithstanding, the descent to the main hall truly did feel like a funeral march. Mahanon trudged down the stairs with what felt like the weight of the world trying to crush his shoulders. He probably should have expected this. He'd been aware that the magister had written to the Inquisition about three months after Dorian's disappearance, but Josephine had fielded that one without requesting any input from him. It had been the hope of everyone that Dorian would be located before any further letters arrived, both because no one wanted to deal with an irate magister and because they wanted their friend back. But seven months had passed since that fateful night in the Basin and all hints of Dorian and Cullen's whereabouts had vanished.

As far as anyone had been able to determine, they had never arrived in Denerim and none of Leliana's contacts in Amaranthine or Highever reported that they'd seen them chartering a ship out of Ferelden. Not even Hawke, who'd dutifully been searching the Free Marches, had found any leads. Widening the scope of the search to include Orlais and Nevarra afforded them nothing. No one had seen them. The obvious reason, that they'd run afoul of someone or something and had perished, wasn't one anybody was willing to entertain, much less accept. But simply telling Dorian's father that they refused to give up until he was found wasn't going to be enough and Mahanon had no other information to share with him.

Despite the crowd in the main hall, Halward Pavus was easy to spot. He stood in the middle of a small group of people wearing armor that Mahanon now easily recognized as being of Tevinter make, looking more like if he'd just exited a session in the Magisterium than that he'd traveled a great distance over land and sea. 

 _I don't know how they do it_ , Mahanon thought as he approached, carefully schooling his expression into one of such blandly polite welcome that Josephine would have been proud of him. _He isn't even dirty from the journey. It must be the magic._  

"Magister Pavus." He inclined his head in a brief, shallow bow. "Welcome to Skyhold." 

"Inquisitor," Pavus returned evenly, dipping his chin in acknowledgement. His eyes, a shade of grey slightly darker than Dorian's, studied Mahanon with fierce intensity.

It occurred to him then that there were worse subjects they might discuss than Dorian's absence. _Don't ask_ , Mahanon thought desperately. _Don't fucking ask_. They'd only met once and not for very long at that, but he had a feeling that Pavus was the sort of meticulously attentive person who never forgot a detail and he knew he looked substantially different than he had during that encounter in Redcliffe. There were moments when even _he_ didn't recognize the face in the mirror.

In the Inquisition, and among Mahanon's closest friends and associates, everyone knew not to broach the subject. Especially now. But a magister with no reason to care about what memories he might dredge up with his inquiry and every reason to be curious about the magic that had obviously been used was unlikely to be so discreet. Mahanon didn't want to talk about it, not with his friends and certainly not with a man who probably felt offended that he had to deal with an elf instead of a "real" person.

But surprisingly, he didn't ask. He studied Mahanon's face for a moment, then looked him in the eyes and asked respectfully, "May we speak privately?"

"Of course."

Thankful that he wasn't going to have to weather being berated in public, Mahanon led Pavus on the quickest route to the first door that opened out onto the battlements. They walked in silence, Pavus half a step behind him and Mahanon praying to anything that would humor him that no one interrupted them with a ridiculous, or embarrassing, request for the Inquisitor to fulfill. _This conversation is already going to be a disaster. I don’t need some scullery maid asking me to figure out what keeps running off with the potatoes again._ _He’ll never take me seriously then._

Something must have heard him, or perhaps luck was finally on his side, for they made it outside without incident. Not even Cole appeared to make some wholly inappropriate and awkward comment, which, while mortifying, would not have come as that much of a surprise. Once they were well away from the closest guard, Mahanon stopped and turned to his guest.

"This is as private as we get around here," he told him apologetically.

Had it been Dorian out there with him, the complaints about the cold would have already been well under way. But his father didn't seem to notice it. Where Dorian would have been fussing with his robes and chafing his hands together to warm them, Pavus stood still, calmly composed and seemingly impervious to the chill mountain winds.

"Where is my son, Inquisitor?" Despite expecting anger or outrage, the blunt question was quietly asked.

"We don't know." It wasn't the diplomatic runaround he would have gotten from Josephine, but because he hadn't started the conversation off with accusations, Mahanon felt he deserved the unvarnished truth. "He was last seen in Ferelden, two weeks after the incident. We've sent scores of people to locate him and bring him back, but he's eluded all of them."

"What can you tell me of the incident that displaced him?"

Mahanon shook his head. "Not much. A group of Venatori attacked us in the middle of the night. We believe they were trying to kill me. One of them cast a spell that Dorian deflected away from me and after that, I'm not certain. It was so chaotic that I wasn't able to keep track of him."

Nor did he have reason to do so in the first place. Dorian was a skilled mage and a competent combatant. He'd never needed undue help in battle before and Mahanon had had no reason to think he would have needed it during that one either.

"When it was over, he and our commander were missing. We searched around the campsite for days but we could find no trace of them. Two weeks later, we had word that they were spotted near Redcliffe, acting strange and using aliases. We—"

"What constitutes _acting strange_?" Pavus interrupted him to ask.

"Asking questions they should have known the answers to. They stayed at a couple's farm for about a week, apparently our commander was injured, and both of them spoke like they knew nothing about the area or what had been happening in the world. The wife even reported that Dorian didn't know anything about the Breach or the war." 

Pavus digested this in silence while Mahanon took the opportunity to look away from him and scowl in frustration at the mountains. It was galling. After everything he'd accomplished since the explosion at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, he couldn't stop feeling like he was directly at fault. He could stop a darkspawn magister from destroying the world, but he couldn't find two people lost in the Hinterlands.

"There are spells that can remove some or all of an individual's memories," Pavus said after a moment, drawing Mahanon's attention back to him. "They are not practiced often or openly, for despite what you southerners believe, most in Tevinter do not condone the use of blood magic, but they do exist."

"Blood magic?" He didn't think to strip the disgust from his voice and probably wouldn't have been able to do it even if he had. "You think they used blood magic on Dorian and Cullen?"

Thoughtful consideration was all that showed on Pavus' face. "Given what you've described and what we know of the Venatori's measures, yes. I believe it was."

Although he was no mage, long association with them through his brother and later with the Inquisition and Dorian had taught Mahanon a thing or two about magic. He knew that an ordinary spell _could_ be undone, though perhaps not easily if none of the mages present knew precisely how it was cast or what it was. But an ordinary mage couldn't alter the magic of a blood mage. That required either someone exceptionally gifted in the magical arts or another blood mage. With the Inquisition's most powerful mage currently under a spell and no blood mages to hand, getting Dorian back— _when_ they managed to find him—was going to be exceedingly difficult.

Once again, Pavus drew him out of his thoughts. "Do you believe he is still alive, Inquisitor?"

"Yes." His answer was immediate, without hesitation or uncertainty. "Dorian is a brilliant mage and a skilled fighter." It would probably be useless to tell his father that Dorian had even managed to beat Mahanon a few times in sparring sessions—Tevinter magisters probably thought even elderly humans could best elven warriors in combat—but he would if he needed to do it. "And Cullen is the best warrior I've ever seen. Lost they may be, but I don't believe they have fallen."

Pavus neither argued with him on that score nor questioned his certainty. He listened, sharp gaze focused on Mahanon's eyes, and after he had fallen silent, nodded slightly. "Then by your leave, I will remain here and help you locate him."

It was a near thing, but by the grace of gods he no longer believed in, Mahanon managed to catch himself before he gaped at him like a fool. He knew that Dorian and his father were on tentative speaking terms again, though he wasn't privy to the details. Dorian still didn't want to discuss his father or their relationship at any length and Mahanon knew better than to pry. So while it wasn't completely shocking to hear that Halward Pavus wanted his son found, it _was_ astonishing that he had come in person and apparently had every intention of remaining there at Skyhold until Dorian was found.

"It might take months to do that," Mahanon warned him, for lack of anything else to say. "Won't you be needed by the Magisterium?"

"It does not matter." Pavus was too dignified to shrug, but there was casual disregard to his tone that suggested that if he wasn't of noble blood, he would have done it. "Nothing is more important than my son's safety."

There wasn't a damn thing he could say in argument to that.

* * *

It was a busy day at the Herald's Rest. A few companies of soldiers and workers had arrived earlier in the week and many of them were taking advantage of their downtime by frequenting Skyhold's only tavern. Varric had managed to procure a seat at the back and was well into his second tankard of ale when a slight shadow fell over the table.

"Hey Varric," greeted the dwarf amicably. "You busy?"

If he was remembering correctly, and he was reasonably sure he was, Varric believed the dwarf's name was Gerzyl. Part of the miner caste, come to help the Inquisition during a fit of open-mindedness about the sky and outsiders. They weren't _friends_ exactly, but the guy was likeable enough for someone fresh out of Orzammar. 

"I think I can spare a few minutes," Varric replied expansively, gesturing toward the empty space across from him. He wasn't busy and he figured it wouldn't hurt to hear whatever gossip the other dwarf might have to share. If nothing else, it might be entertaining. "What's on your mind?"

Gerzyl sat down without a fuss. "Heard from my cousin in Orzammar the other day. Some of the things he said, I don't know. I wanted your opinion before I said anything." 

At this stage in his life, it was easy for Varric to squash the impulse to lean forward. They weren't haggling over the cost of information or goods, but even so, he knew that it never paid to give away when he was interested in something. Instead, he adopted an air of casual confusion. "What do you mean?"

It must have been convincing, because Gerzyl didn't seem to pick up on the act. "The Inquisitor's still looking for the commander and that magister, right?" 

Varric was _definitely_ interested now, though he continued to keep the evidence of it off his face. "Yeah." Glancing past his companion, he flagged down a passing server and gestured for another tankard of ale. "Let me get you a drink and you can tell me what you've heard."

Gerzyl was nodding in agreement before he'd finished making the offer, and once he _had_ finished, launched right into it. "My cousin Berem, he's from the artisan caste. Pretty open minded." Varric knew what that meant without having to ask for clarification. "Occasionally does work for humans. A couple days ago, he got a visit from a human merchant. Asked him to make some kind of fancy jewelry. Would've fetched a lot of gold for the work, too, but the trader told him it was for the commander of the Inquisition so he did it for free."

Cullen had a merchant getting jewelry made in Orzammar for him? Try though he might, Varric couldn't fathom why. "This was in Orzammar?"

"Aye."

If Cullen was sending people to Orzammar for him, Varric reasoned, that probably meant that he was somewhere in the vicinity. Obviously not in Orzammar proper, what with his not being a dwarf first and foremost and his dislike for enclosed spaces a close second. But it wasn't like there were numerous settlements in the area that he could disappear in, either. Jader, possibly, or West Hill. Maybe one of the smaller villages somewhere between the two. Varric was passably familiar with Ferelden but he didn't know the location of every minor holding. _Can't be that many of them though. Can there?_

"He give you the name of the trader?" Varric didn't have high hopes for that, but on the off-chance he had, that might help narrow things down if someone started asking around.

"Maelia." _Well, I'll be damned._ "Human woman. You know her?"

Varric responded to the hopeful question with a regretful shake of his head. "Doesn't ring any bells. Any idea where she's from?"

As Gerzyl thought it over, the server came by with the second ale and, at a gesture from Varric, placed it down hear his elbow. "Not sure," he finally replied. "Said she comes around sometimes. Does a lot of trading in Ferelden."

It was possible that it was a trick. Cullen was a clever man and if he was trying to conceal his whereabouts, Varric had no doubt that he would be able to do so. And if Dorian was with him, actively helping to throw off any potential searchers, it would be even more difficult to locate them. But that was only supposing that they were trying to go unnoticed. If they couldn't remember who they were or what might be lurking in their past, there was no reason to hide. And if they had no reason to hide, then it stood to reason that they truly were still in Ferelden after all.

"And you're sure he said commander of the Inquisition?" Varric pressed. 

"Aye." Gerzyl took a healthy swig of his ale, sloshing it around in his mouth before swallowing it and wiping at his beard with the back of his hand. "Said she was pretty insistent about it. Something about doing it as a favor to him."

 _Why in the Maker's name is he getting jewelry made?_ From what he knew of the man, Cullen wasn't the type to go for that sort of thing. He was so practical that he bordered on boring. Trying to imagine him in necklaces and earrings, while hilarious, just didn't work. _Has he discovered a sense of style without the weight of his stuffy personality holding him back? Or has he found himself a sweetheart?_ Of course, the most realistic answer was that it was neither of those options, yet the storyteller in Varric wanted to make more out of it than there probably was. _It would make one hell of a story. Might even be more popular than_ Hard in Hightown.

"How long ago was this?"

Gerzyl's mouth twisted into a half-frown as he tried to estimate the time. "Got the message two days ago. Berem must've sent it maybe a week before that." 

Whatever the reason for the odd commission, if Cullen was in the market for jewelry, he was probably sticking around wherever it was he was currently staying. Which meant that if they acted fast, they might be able to catch up with him.

"Well Gerzyl..." Setting down his own ale, Varric folded his hands together on the table in front of himself. "If you want my take on it, sounds like your cousin might've found our missing commander." 

"So the Inquisitor'll want to know? 

Varric nodded. "Bet my last coin on it."

Strangely, Gerzyl didn't look as eager to bring the information to Lavellan's attention as Varric expected him to. "You know him, right? The Inquisitor? Think you could pass it on?"

"You don't want to do it yourself?"

He shook his head. "Never had much use for the nobles. Figure there's no reason to get involved with 'em now."

It was on the tip of his tongue to point out that Lavellan was absolutely not nobility and would probably laugh his ass off at the accusation, but in the end, Varric decided it was easier just to nod and take care of it himself. "Sure. I'll do it today."

"Thanks, Varric." Gerzyl lifted his tankard in a toast. "I owe you one."

 _No, friend. If this information pans out, I think we're going to owe_ you.

* * *

 "I fear that _friend_ —" The emphasis made Cassandra's opinion of Varric, the dwarf who'd provided the information, and anyone else with any ties to Varric whatsoever extremely clear. "—of Varric's was mistaken."

"We've only been at it for four days!" Mahanon replied, opting for a cheerfully optimistic tone that didn't quite align with his true feelings on the matter.

Cassandra gave him a long, flat stare that he tried to meet with casual obliviousness, but she held his eyes for too long for it to be convincing. It didn't help his cause that they'd known each other for considerable time and had grown close enough that any attempts to pass himself off as a clueless Dalish savage were seen through immediately. She arched an eyebrow, challenging him to continue playing dumb.

Giving it up as a bad job, he sighed so heavily that the dracolisk he was riding hissed at him in annoyance. "Traitor," he grumbled at the top of its head, giving it a light nudge in the side with the heel of his boot. 

"Inquis—" Cassandra started, then changed tacks. "Mahanon..." The switch from his title to his name told him exactly where she was planning to go with that and it wasn’t anywhere he was interested in following.

"I know what you're going to say, Cassandra," he interrupted, before she could get going. He kept his tone gentle, knowing that she meant well. "But I need to do this. Not because—" He summed up everything he didn't want to discuss with a quick wave of his hand. "I can't spend more time looking for strangers' heirlooms than my own friends. And I can't sit around in Skyhold while everyone else does what I ought to be doing."

The forced inactivity was nearly driving him mad. So often during the battle against Corypheus, he'd been tasked with the most mundane things. Finding lost friends and family members. Retrieving missing artifacts of no real value and delivering personal messages for people he didn’t know. It wasn't that he _minded_ helping people, but anyone in the Inquisition could have done those tasks while the person bearing the Anchor should have been devoting all of his time to closing rifts, battling demons and corrupted templars, and stopping Corypheus from killing them all. _His_ presence hadn't been necessary, and truth be told, he probably shouldn’t have been doing all of those menial chores anyway.

Yet now that there was no apocalypse hanging, quite literally, over their heads, apparently he was too important to get involved in the search for high-ranking members of the Inquisition. He needed to be available on the slim chance that some noble from Orlais wanted to talk about a moldy treaty or a group of merchants wanted to establish some kind of trade partnership with the Inquisition. Or maybe there was an invitation to a party that might need his personal seal. It was ridiculous and the longer it went on, the more rebellious he'd been becoming. If this opportunity hadn't come along when it had, he would have made one of his own. Likely with far more inconvenient and far-reaching consequences.

“I would not discourage you from this,” Cassandra said, two shades off of being actually chastising. “Cullen is my friend too.” Yes, that he well knew. He glanced away, feeling slightly guilty about the insinuation that he cared about them more than she did. She must have read that guilt in his tightened expression, because she softened her tone as she continued. “But it would not harm the cause to enlist others to aid us.”

“I’m not opposed to calling in reinforcements. If I had my way, the whole country would be swarming with Inquisition soldiers right now.” The dracolisk was making light clicking sounds at him. Without thinking about it, he ran a hand soothingly down the side of its neck. “I just want to keep at it while we wait for them to arrive. I don’t want to hole up safely in an inn somewhere.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes at him, then looked away to scan the horizon. “Very well. You may tell the magister that when we return to the campsite tonight.”

Mahanon tried not to grimace at the reminder. _Just throw me to the wolves and have done with it, why don’t you?_

When he and Cassandra had assembled the search party, they’d tried to keep it small. Initially, it had just been the two of them under the assumption that a smaller group would travel faster than a larger one. But by the day’s end that number had grown to include three of Cullen’s soldiers, each of whom had not only volunteered when word of the mission got around Skyhold but had also petitioned Mahanon so vehemently for their inclusion that it had bordered on badgering. And when they assembled at the gate the next morning to ride out, Halward Pavus had been sitting on a horse waiting for them.  Noticeably alone at that,  _without_ his guards and attendants.

All attempts to discourage the magister from joining the expedition had failed rather spectacularly. But he’d kept to himself on the road, hadn’t complained about the conditions the way his son certainly would have, and had offered a helping hand whenever they made camp. He’d also volunteered to accompany the soldiers on a search of a tiny hamlet about ten miles north of Mahanon and Cassandra’s present location. Pavus wasn’t exactly anyone’s ideal traveling companion, but as wary of him as Mahanon remained, he did have to concede that it wasn’t as terrible having him along as he'd first thought it was going to be.

A few miles ahead of them, a village was coming into view. It wasn’t large by any means, but even at their present distance, it seemed larger than the last one they’d visited. 

“What’s the name of this one?” Cassandra asked, steering her horse around a large hole in the road.

Mahanon glanced down at the map spread haphazardly over the pommel of his saddle. “Looks like Wutherford.”

Next to him, Cassandra snorted. A sideways glance didn’t enlighten him as to whether that was a disparaging or humorous sound, though all things considered, perhaps it was both.

“If we don’t find any leads here, we’ll head north to West Hill tomorrow,” he told her. “We can stick to the coast and check out the larger towns. When our reinforcements arrive, we’ll send them into the smaller villages.” 

She accepted that compromise with a nod. 

Squinting against the glare of the sun, Mahanon studied the landscape ahead of them. “It looks pretty small. This shouldn’t take long.”


	14. Chapter 14

 

When he'd envisioned reuniting with his lost comrades, Mahanon had imagined a number of scenarios that ran the gamut from joyous relief to awkward confusion, depending on the nature and severity of the affliction that had robbed them of their memories. He had also, with the ignorance of someone who was not a mage, expected that Magister Pavus would be able to wave his hands and clear the whole mess right up so that everyone would be able to get on with their lives with minimal further disruption. But the reality couldn't have been further from the truth.

And after everything he'd been through, he really ought to have known better. 

Cullen hadn't recognized him or Cassandra. Worse, he'd apparently been operating under the erroneous belief that the Inquisition was the enemy, because as soon as he realized that he'd been recognized, he had reacted with the same kind of desperate violence Mahanon had encountered from trapped animals. It had taken both of them to subdue him and neither of them had emerged from the unexpected battle unscathed. It hadn't helped matters that the rest of the tavern's patrons had come to Cullen's defense before Mahanon was able to get his glove off and prove to them that he really was the Inquisitor he claimed to be. For a few fraught minutes, they'd had to fight off a man who was trying to kill them without hurting him or the innocent civilians who hadn't known any better. 

A lucky blow from Cassandra had rendered Cullen unconscious while Mahanon had been busy holding up his glowing hand and shouting at the villagers to stop fighting. Although it hadn't been ideal, and certainly not the ending to the nearly year-long ordeal that Mahanon had been expecting, they'd had to restrain him so that he didn't wake up and attack them all over again. Once the explanations had been made and the onlookers had been assured that they weren't there to harm Cullen, one of them had been dispatched north to retrieve Dorian's father and the Inquisition soldiers. It was only after they had arrived some five hours later—and Cullen had been put magically to sleep so he wouldn't hurt himself or anyone else—that they went to collect Dorian from the healer. 

After the fiasco with Cullen, no one tried to talk to Dorian first. Mahanon opened the door and Pavus, right on his heels, had put his son to sleep before Dorian had a chance to turn around from the table at which he'd been working. It was a rotten thing to do and Mahanon felt terrible for treating his friends this way, but he knew that they'd both be heartsick if they inadvertently killed someone or, in Dorian's case, burned the village to the ground. The easiest solution was to get it all over with as soon as possible, take them back to Skyhold, restore their memories, and apologize afterward. 

Earlier in the day, while they'd been awaiting the arrival of Magister Pavus and the soldiers, Cassandra had procured a wagon and an additional team of horses to pull it so that they could transport what they now knew was going to be recalcitrant cargo back to Skyhold. Meanwhile, Mahanon had spoken at length with the villagers about what had been going on with Cullen and Dorian. He'd learned that they'd been residents of the village for more than half a year and that in an effort to help conceal them, the villagers had been quietly redirecting any inquiries from travelers and Inquisition scouts elsewhere. 

Cullen, as it turned out, was something of a beloved local hero. Many of the residents had known him as a young man, when he'd been a templar stationed at Ferelden's Circle of Magi and had frequently visited during his free time. He hadn't had any family or relatives in the area, but his courteous, helpful nature had quickly afforded him friends. According to the tavern owner, Greta, it hadn't been unusual to see him lending a hand in the fields or on a construction project. Quite a few families had been hoping that he might be amenable to marrying one of their daughters, but he hadn't ever shown a romantic interest in anyone. 

Many of his friends in the village had kept what tabs they could on him after the Blight and the Circle's fall. They'd heard that he'd become first a Knight-Captain of Kirkwall's Circle and later, the commander of the Inquisition. It had been a little like one of their own rising to such a prestigious position and though they'd never expected to see him again, they had celebrated his success and wished him the best. 

When he had walked into the tavern, the owner said she'd recognized him immediately. "Handsome man like that," she'd told Mahanon with a sly smile and a wink. "You don't easily forget him." And rumors of the Inquisition's magister had made it relatively easy to figure out Dorian's identity. 

Greta had admitted that it was strange that neither man was willing to give his real name, but no one had wanted to pry. Cullen—and by extension, Dorian—was one of their own, to their thinking, and if he wanted to live a quiet life away from the hustle and bustle of the Inquisition, it hadn't been anyone's business but his. The villagers had been happy to have him back and were willing to go along with the charade if it made him comfortable. And whenever anyone came nosing around, which evidently a number of Inquisition scouts had over the course of the search, the villagers had shaken their heads, claimed they'd never seen anyone matching the descriptions they were given, and sent the scouts on their way. 

There was a large part of Mahanon that was angry over the deception. They'd all been worried sick over Dorian and Cullen's disappearance. Dorian's father had descended on the Inquisition and refused to go back where he belonged. Resources that would have been better spent elsewhere had been wasted on a world-wide search. It was infuriating. And at the same time, it was strangely heartening to hear how the village had taken them in and cared for them. Dorian, who'd complained about unfair treatment and suspicion simply for being from Tevinter, had been accepted without reservation. By all accounts, he and Cullen had both been happy. Despite the inconvenience, upset, and wasted time and resources, that mattered. It mattered a great deal. 

So when they departed from Wutherford, it wasn't with dark promises of retribution but assurances that they would take care of Cullen and Dorian and, once they had been restored to themselves, Mahanon told Greta that he would have them write to her and the friends they'd made to let them know that all was well. Even if he had to strong arm Cullen into putting pen to parchment, given the man's abysmal record of maintaining communication with personal contacts. 

Thankfully, the journey back to Skyhold was as uneventful as the encounter at Wutherford wasn't. No bandits attempted to rob them. No high dragons swooped in out of nowhere to lay waste to the countryside. No horde of demons poured out of holes in the sky. It would have actually been a pleasant experience, were it not for the fact that two of their companions were unconscious and a dour magister rode alongside them like a particularly humorless guard. 

In order to minimize the attention their arrival might have attracted, word was sent ahead to Leliana to arrange for as few people to be present in the courtyard as possible. To aid in preserving their companions' dignity, she advised the party to enter late at night when the activity in the fortress would already be at its lowest. Discreet rooms, she assured them, would be made ready for them in one of the least used corridors as well. 

The secrecy didn't sit particularly well with Mahanon. After having brushed up against enough underhanded and double-dealing politics to last him a lifetime during his tenure as Inquisitor, he preferred to be transparent with his people about his actions. But he knew Cullen was a private person and despite his help with Corypheus, Dorian still dealt with more prejudice than he ought to have had to endure. It wasn't lying to say that they had been injured during their ordeal and would need time to recuperate. Once they were well, they could decide what they wanted the public to know. They didn't need a crowd of well-intentioned gawkers present for their less than triumphant return. 

Because it was early morning by the time they arrived at Skyhold proper and got Dorian and Cullen installed in their temporary quarters, it was ultimately decided that they would tackle memory restoration after everyone, especially Pavus, had gotten a decent amount of rest. Mahanon hadn't really liked that either, impatient as he was to have his friends back, but he saw the wisdom in it too clearly to argue. The last thing they needed was for Pavus to be so exhausted from traveling that he made an error during spellcasting and lost them forever. He'd waited this long. He could wait a few more hours. 

Tired as he was, sleep did not come easily. Anxiety and anticipation kept his mind too awake to drift off. Once or twice he caught himself wishing that Solas were still there to help Pavus with his work and every time it happened, he squashed the wistful nonsense as ruthlessly as he dispatched demons. Solas was gone. His abrupt disappearance at the Valley of Sacred Ashes and subsequent absence had made that fact painfully clear. It was better not to think about him at all. Mahanon was certain he wasn't thinking about any of _them_. 

Around dawn he finally fell into a fitful, restless slumber, but it was short-lived. Leliana woke him a few hours later to inform him that Pavus was ready to begin. Tired, cranky, and trying to shake off the odd cramp that was making his left hand ache, Mahanon hurried down into the fortress to find him. Unsurprisingly, he found him with Dorian instead of Cullen. 

"How is he?" Mahanon said by way of greeting as he stepped into the room. 

Pavus was in the middle of pouring a glass of water and only briefly glanced his way. "As well as can be expected." He set the water jug down onto the table but didn't take a drink. Instead, he placed the glass near a thin-bladed knife that was already sitting there. "I will wake him after I have completed the spell." 

Curiosity and concern for Dorian's well-being made Mahanon want to ask exactly what the spell entailed, but years of listening to his brother talk about the magic he'd been learning at the Keeper's side and not understanding most of it made him doubt that he'd understand this even if Pavus deigned to explain it. He looked over the room in lieu of asking stupid questions, taking in the sparse furnishings, before his gaze returned to the knife and the small stack of books on the opposite end of the table. One of them was open, but the writing was incomprehensible to him. 

"Do you have everything you need?" he inquired, both for something to say and to stall for time until he could figure out how to diplomatically say what he felt desperately needed to be said. 

Pavus nodded. "Insofar as I know, yes." 

The problem was, Mahanon _didn't_ know how to be diplomatic about it. He wasn't a diplomat. Josephine still winced whenever it wasn't possible for her to field requests and conversations with nobles in his stead, knowing that he could never be counted on not to say something that might cause offense, and no matter how many times he apologized and told her that he hadn't meant to be insulting, she continued to maintain that he was only slightly better than Cullen at handling sensitive subjects. And today, he didn't _want_ to be diplomatic. 

They had gotten off to a rocky start, but Dorian had become his best friend. Mahanon loved him like a brother and wouldn't think twice about facing down an army of angry magisters for him. He also wasn't stupid. He knew what Pavus was going to do. They all did, though no one wanted to acknowledge it or call it by name. Considering his history with his son, it didn't seem too far outside of the realm of possibility that he might seek to correct what he perceived to be a mistake while he was removing the spell. Working alone and unmonitored, there wouldn't be anyone to stop him and without another blood mage competent in the workings of Tevinter spellcraft, no way to undo it if it did happen. 

Pavus wasn't stupid either. He watched Mahanon stand there not saying anything for a long moment, then prompted mildly, "Is there something else?" 

 _If you do anything to hurt him, I swear to all the gods that I will kill you_ was neither appropriate nor an auspicious way to begin incredibly delicate, taxing spellwork. Mahanon knew that, though the impulse to say it anyway remained a strong temptation. As he looked—scowled; he was scowling and he knew that too—at Pavus, his brother's voice floated through his mind. 

 _"You can't solve all your problems by waving your sword at them"_ was an oft-heard chiding remark round the Lavellan camp when they'd been growing up. Of course, Arven was also a hypocrite who thought that the way to handle problems was to set them on fire. As amusing as the mental image might have been, that wasn't going to work with Dorian's father.

"Dorian's my friend," Mahanon settled on saying, instead of the myriad inventive threats he would have preferred voicing. He probably should have stopped there and let the ominous silence speak for itself, but he kept talking, his compromise with decorum coming to a sudden termination. "One of my closest friends and a valued member of the Inquisition." _My apologies, brother._ "I expect to have my friend back when you're done here."

He wasn't being subtle about it. His voice was a little too hard and the look he was giving Pavus was a bit flintier than he knew it ought to have been. It sounded like the threat Mahanon meant it to be and Pavus wasn't foolish enough not to realize that. Yet he didn't so much as blink at any of it. His bland expression didn't change; perhaps it was nothing more than a trick of the light that made it seem like there was a spark of amusement in his eyes.

"Of course," Pavus agreed, his tone just a little too blithe for Mahanon's liking.

 _You'd best take me seriously,_ he thought darkly as he stared him down. _This is no jest._  

It felt like they stood there staring at each other over Dorian's unconscious body for an eternity, Mahanon all but bristling like one of those oversized Fereldan dogs and Pavus attentive yet disturbingly indifferent. Something needed to be said, but Mahanon didn't trust himself to try. Not until he got his rising temper under firm control. But after fleeting seconds had become whole minutes, Pavus sighed.

"I have no ulterior motive, Inquisitor." Just for an instant, it seemed like the facade cracked and Mahanon saw through to the father behind the magister's mantle. "Once, I would have foolishly used blood magic to steal from my son a part of who he is. It is only just that I use it now to return him to himself." 

Everything in him wanted to demand that Pavus tell him what brought that change of heart on, but he had the self-awareness to know that it wasn't any of his business. If it had been, Dorian would have told him himself after their tentative reconciliation in Redcliffe. _You've done everything you can_ , he told himself, hoping that maybe if he thought it enough, he would start believing it. _You can't help him now. Only his father can. You have to let him try._

"Very well." It was difficult to give the nod of acceptance and move toward the door. Mahanon made himself do it. "Please inform me when you finish. I'm eager to see him."

"Of course, Inquisitor." 

Mahanon took one last look at Dorian, told himself to stop acting like he'd never see him again, and left the room. Although he wanted to loiter in the hallway until it was done, he forced his feet to keep going. He knew that as soon as he appeared in the main hall, half a dozen emergencies would spontaneously develop that required his immediate attention. He didn't care and didn't want to deal with any of them, but he needed the distraction. Time would pass more quickly that way.

* * *

As he gradually came awake, his first thought was, _Maker's arse, I need to stop drinking so much._ It wasn't the worst headache of his life and the nausea that would have accompanied a truly spectacular hangover didn't immediately twist his stomach into a queasy, uncomfortable knot. But his head _did_ hurt and his thoughts were a sluggish, disjointed mess as he shrugged off the weight of sleep and opened his eyes.

His next thought was a much clearer, and far more surprised, _Where am I?_ Because the wall opposite where he lay was made of stone and when last he'd checked, tents were typically made of canvas. Cots weren't as comfortable as beds, either, and he was certain that he was lying on a mattress. A thick mattress covered by soft sheets, if the sensation under his palm was anything to go by. He was in a bed in an actual warm room when the last thing he remembered was an uncomfortable cot sitting at the back of a drafty, miserably cold tent.

Confused and becoming increasingly more alarmed, he sat up and looked around. The change in vantage opened more of the room to view. Four walls, a ceiling, a fireplace in which a fire was steadily burning, a table, some chairs. And a visitor watching quietly from the chair nearest the bed.

Dorian's third thought fell right out of his open mouth. " _Father?_ "

There was no mistaking him for someone else. The clothes he was wearing were a little more casual than Dorian was accustomed to seeing him in, but this far south, there was no need to stand on the type of ceremony that was expected in Minrathous. His father's expression was rather neutral, though surely he had been expecting Dorian to react to his presence with surprise.

Although the unexpected discovery of his father was taking up most of his attention, some part of Dorian's mind was still actively taking in the room and finally, he recognized it for what it was. Skyhold. How he'd gotten there was certainly a concern, and one he hoped to eventually settle, but first, he had to deal with the more immediate one: what his blasted father was doing in the home of the Inquisition. 

Before Halward could say anything, Dorian shook his head. "What are you doing here?" 

As often happened whenever he tried to get a straight answer out of his father, his question was met with another one. "How are you feeling?" Halward asked calmly. 

"Confused," Dorian replied honestly. 

Halward nodded. "That is to be expected."

 _What in the Maker's name does that mean?_ Words failed him when he most needed them. All he could do was stare at his father in exasperation. Cryptic comments and non-answers were not the least bit appreciated at the moment. Dorian hoped that the severity of his expression properly conveyed that sentiment. 

And perhaps it did, for Halward thankfully didn't draw it out. "You suffered an injury while traveling through the Frostback Basin. Do you remember that?" 

An injury might explain how he'd come to arrive at Skyhold without being aware of the passage of time. Feeling slightly more at ease and on firmer footing, Dorian searched his memories. He remembered slogging through an overgrown jungle filled with plants as oversized as the spiders that lived on the shores of the rivers. He remembered fur-covered, mud-spattered Avvar and the depressing hovels they called home. Ancient Tevinter ruins, fanatical zealots who wielded enchanted weapons and worshiped a spirit trapped in the body of a dragon, following the trail of the previous Inquisitor: all of these things returned to him easily, in flashes of sight and sound. Yet though he had a clear image—and an even clearer sense of relief at returning to civilization—of putting the strange people behind him as the Inquisition turned back toward home, nothing else followed. 

Certainly nothing that included an injury so severe that he had to spend the rest of the journey unconscious. 

"Not that I recall," he admitted, frowning slightly in consternation. 

Halward hummed a note of acceptance, as though he'd been expecting such an answer. "You will."

That sounded somewhat ominous, and not simply because it had come from his father. "What are you—" 

He didn't let him finish. "What is the last thing you remember? I would not waste time covering ground with which you're already familiar." 

That was an easy one. "Leaving those muddy Avvar people to celebrate their dirt and animals or whatever it is they do when they aren't running around half-naked in the winter." It wasn't that he _meant_ to sound disparaging about the Avvar, everyone in Stone-Bear Hold was friendly enough by the end of the adventure, but they ran around covered in mud. _On purpose._ Surely only people of questionable sanity did such things. 

No doubt his father shared a similar opinion. Yet instead of commiserating with him on the disgusting habits of slovenly southerners, Halward merely said, "Your camp was attacked by remnants of the Venatori. It is believed that they sought to kill the Inquisitor, though you came to harm in the midst of the fighting."

It was an easy thing to forget about this injury business when he wasn't in any pain and he hadn't encountered any difficult when he'd sat up. But Halward mentioning it again made him push back the blankets to try to get a better look at himself. 

"But I don't feel..." Dorian's voice trailed off as he caught sight of the bracelet for the first time. Coils of gold designed to look like a snake, complete with two large emerald eyes, wrapped from his wrist to midway up his forearm. It was the sort of accessory he would have chosen, no doubt of that, but he had never seen it before. For a moment, he stared at it in mute perplexity, wanting to ask where it had come from while simultaneously doubting that he’d like whatever answer he received. If he received one at all. Deciding to worry about it later, he looked back at his father. "What sort of injury?"

"An injury of the mind." Halward had to have noticed the way he'd been staring at the bracelet, but he didn't acknowledge it in any way. Which, Dorian surmised, meant that it hadn't come from him. "A spell was cast on you that erased your memories."

All thoughts of mysterious jewelry abruptly fled his mind. "What?"

It only got worse. "You have been missing for nearly a year."

Even knowing that gaping like a yokel was wholly unattractive couldn't stop Dorian from doing it. "Missing?" he managed, once he got his tongue unfrozen from the bottom of his mouth. "That's preposterous. I wasn't—"

His father cut off the almost stuttering protest before he could get it started. "I came to Skyhold nearly four months ago. I have been helping the Inquisitor search for you." 

With every word, the story he was hearing was getting more and more unbelievable. Nearly a year of missing memories? _His father_ leaving Minrathous to come to Ferelden to join the Inquisition? He couldn't credit it.

"You've been here for months? Why?"

From the downward cant of Halward's mouth, his opinion of the Inquisition hadn't improved with more exposure. "The Inquisition was unable to locate you. Even if they had, they would not have been able to correct what the Venatori had done." 

 _No, I suppose there wasn't anyone left who could easily reverse such magic._ Dorian might have a tendency to speak of his abilities with arrogance, but his attitude, while obnoxious, was well warranted. He _was_ the most powerful mage the Inquisition had at its disposal. The only one who was a match for his skill was Solas and unless something had changed in the unfathomable time he'd apparently been absent, the elf was gone. And the average Tevinter trained mage was likely more skilled and possessed of a wider range of knowledge than the average southern one. Still, that didn't explain why Halward himself had come. He could have sent one of his associates in his place.

"I don't understand." _Any of it._ "Where have I been?" _One of the bloody moons?_  

It must have taken Halward a considerable amount of self-control to keep his voice mild and neutral when he said, without even a sniff of disparagement, "You were found living in a Fereldan village."

" _Me?_ " Dorian had no compunction about trying to conceal his horrified disbelief. "Living in a _village?_ " Surely his father was mistaken. Whoever told him such scandalous lies couldn't be believed. "That's not—"

Halward cut his indignant denials off with a quiet, "Commander Rutherford was found with you."

 _Cullen? What in the Maker's name was he doing there?_ Dorian stared at him, certain he'd heard that wrong. "I beg your pardon?"

"You were both afflicted with the same spell. It appears as though you traveled across the country together and chose to remain with one another in the village." 

"Cullen and I lived in a _village_ for nearly a year?" He couldn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it. Oh, he could imagine Cullen puttering around one of Ferelden's shabby villages easily enough. For all his martial expertise, the man practically exuded a desire to be up to his elbows in livestock and wheat fields. But _Dorian Pavus_ , scion of House Pavus, devastatingly handsome, and mage of nearly unparalled skill, wouldn’t be caught dead partaking in such a provincial lifestyle. “Doing what?”

It was beneath the dignity of such a vaunted magister to outright _laugh_ at him, but even from the distance at which Dorian was presently sitting, he could see the evidence of humor in his father's eyes. "According to the townspeople, you had offered your services to their healer. I know not of what the commander did with his time." 

No, that wasn't surprising to learn. Halward wouldn't have cared enough about the actions of southern templar to take note of his circumstances if it hadn't affected him or his interests. "Where is Cullen now? Is he all right?"

"He is resting comfortably here in Skyhold until I can reverse the effects of the spell." Halward evidently knew what was coming, because he lifted a hand. "Which I will do after I am finished here."

 _Well, that's something, at any rate._ Dorian passed a hand over his face, rubbing briefly at the space between his brows before raking his fingers back through his hair. "Why don't I remember any of this?"

For the next few seconds, Dorian had the dubious privilege of watching Halward hesitate and mull over his words. It wasn't something the self-assured man typically did and seeing it now gave him considerable pause. It didn't bode well for whatever was coming. Dorian felt that down into the marrow of his bones.

"Recovering both of you was not as simple as one might expect," he offered finally, choosing his words with care. "The Inquisitor had considerable difficulty apprehending the commander, owing to mistaken beliefs he was evidently harboring about the nature of the Inquisition. After some discussion, it was decided that it would be more beneficial to everyone if you and he were eased through your recovery to avoid confusion and potential injury."

"Injury?" Dorian echoed, his eyebrows rising.

Neither Halward's expression nor his voice changed, yet Dorian would have wagered a large sum of gold on him privately finding what he said next to be utterly hilarious. "The Inquisitor still bears the bruises from his encounter with the commander in the tavern."

It occurred to him then that as dangerous as Cullen could be if riled, his magic made him infinitely more destructive. With a pained pinch to his mouth, he warily asked, "How much of the village did I burn?"

"You caused no damage." Maybe it was a trick of the light, but just for an instant, Dorian thought he saw the tiniest upward quirk at the corner of Halward's mouth. "We did not attempt to speak with you prior to putting you to sleep."

Dorian might have been nonplussed by what he was hearing, but he wasn't a fool. What his father wasn't saying was just as important as what he was. Perhaps it was even more important. Even in Tevinter, there was not an abundance of accessible, easy to cast mind alteration spells available to every mage with even a modicum of ability. That sort of magic was highly specialized and of interest to only one type of mage. 

After everything he'd seen and experienced before and after leaving Tevinter, Dorian wasn't easily horrified by terrible things. Egregiously gaudy statues of dogs and the inclusion of mud as part of one's fashion, yes. Of course. Anyone with even the slightest eye to aesthetics would be appalled to look upon Ferelden's abysmal sense of what it thought of as _style_. But his family's penchant for eschewing reason and integrity was hardly shocking anymore. 

Calmly, without any inflection or emotion, he asked, "It was blood magic, wasn't it?" 

"Yes."

Acceptance of his father's actions didn't negate the bitterness that welled up within him at hearing them confirmed. "So you got your wish at last."

 _How much of me now_ _remains?_ Beyond confusion and the gaping hole in his memories, Dorian couldn't sense a difference in himself. Yet he was not quite ready to believe that, having made the commitment to crossing the line, Halward hadn't gone the step further to realize his earlier goals. No doubt there were ways of tampering with the mind that would leave no trace and simply trying to imagine attraction to a hypothetical man did not assuage his concerns in the least.

Halward's response was as mild and unperturbed as if Dorian had inquired about the afternoon's weather for the purpose of choosing an appropriate shirt. "As you have been recovered and restored, yes. I suppose that I did."

He didn't bother trying to hide his irritation. This was _not_ the time for semantics. "I meant—"

"You are no different now than you were when you left that Avvar settlement, Dorian." The blandly neutral facade cracked for a second. Just a tiny hairline fracture that revealed a tiny glimpse of frustration. "We have spoken of this already, have we not? Must we revisit it again?"

In the broadest of meanings, his father was correct. They had been over this in Redcliffe and there was naught that conversation could do to erase the betrayal and hurt Halward's actions had caused him. _Nothing_ could change that, though time could perhaps dull the sharpness of the sting. Yet it hadn't been a mere mistake in judgment or a simple accident easily brushed under the carpet for Dorian. It had been his life, an essential aspect of who he was, that his father—the most beloved and trusted person in his life outside of Felix—had sought to change for his own selfish comfort and reputation.

Anger spiked through him, fiery hot and distracting. _We will revisit this whenever I wish_ , _Father. Simply because it causes you discomfort does not mean I will dutifully ignore what you attempted to do to me. "_ Am I meant to have forgotten what happened?" The implication of a sneer slid into his tone without manifesting on his lips. "Perhaps you ought to have kept that memory from me as well if that was your intention."

Halward took a deep, centering breath. "I did not come here to finish what I once sought to start."

"Not I'm ungrateful about remembering who I am—" He wasn't ungrateful for that. A life spent not knowing who he actually was seemed like an awful one to contemplate. "But I should like to know precisely why you _are_ here. Tevinter has no shortage of mages willing to ignore the dangers of blood magic. You might have sent one of them instead of venturing down here yourself."

His reply was simple and straightforward. "I would not trust another with such an important task." 

Dorian eyed him mistrustfully. "And what is that? Creating the perfect son?" 

It became obvious that he was wearing his patience thin when Halward sighed. "You are clever, Dorian, but you do not understand everything." 

"Then by all means, _enlighten_ me." 

They held each other's eyes for what seemed like forever. Then, Halward softly replied, "I wished more for you than mere prosperity. I wanted you to be happy." 

It took all of his self-control not to shout at him. "Oh, for the Maker's sake, how could you possibly think that turning me into someone else would make me _happy_?"

Rising from his chair, Halward moved to the room's one window in measured steps. It wasn't a retreat, his father had never retreated from anything, but it was the closest to it that Dorian had ever witnessed. He wasn't so caught in the spiral of anger and hurt that he neglected to recognize that. And wonder about its cause. 

"It isn't enough to be idealistic or courageous," Halward told him, shifting to look not at Dorian but at the mountains beyond the fortress walls. "Tevinter will not change easily, if it changes at all. Those who do not bend to it all too often break." 

Quietly, Dorian murmured, "I am not so easily broken, Father." 

Halward didn't turn to face him. Were it not for the faint movement that came with clasping his hands behind his back, Dorian would have thought him motionless. "Bending can sometimes be indistinguishable from breaking, my son." 

 _What would you know about it?_ was on the tip of Dorian's tongue, about to leave the confines of his mouth for the wide open space beyond it, when the inkling of the impossible snapped his jaw shut. It was a preposterous thought, so ridiculous that he couldn't let himself even begin to give it credence. 

"You believe I wished for you to spend a lifetime living a lie," Halward continued on, seemingly oblivious to the dumbfounded way Dorian was looking at him. "Yet that could not be further from the truth. I meant to spare you such a fate." 

Faint though it was, the suspicion wouldn't leave him and for the first time, he looked upon parts of his life he'd always taken as a matter of course with new eyes. Halward and Aquinea had never had a close relationship. The only times Dorian could recall seeing the two of them together in the same place was at official, and very public, events. He'd always attributed it to how busy the magisterium kept his father and his mother's general disinterest in anything that didn't involve her directly, but now, he wondered if he had been mistaking the reason for their distance. Halward had once spoken of how alike he and Dorian wore and Dorian had easily accepted the simple explanation that he referred to nothing but their pride. 

Halward turned from the window to regard him as he was still sorting through the implications of this newfound revelation. He was as composed and controlled as Dorian had ever seen him, but now that he was looking for it, he could discern _something else_ in his eyes. 

"It seemed the only way to give you everything you might desire without sacrificing your birthright," Halward told him quietly. 

"Why did you never tell me?" burst out of Dorian before he could stop it, an exclamation of mingled shock and frustrated hurt. He didn't enjoy being emotional; adult though he was, a part of him would always strive to gain his father's hard to win approval and Halward had never appreciated overly emotional displays. 

All the years he'd spent as a pariah, struggling to find a place for himself in a society where he hadn't fit, feeling alone and misunderstand by everyone around him, arguing with his parents and proving himself a constant disappointment to their expectations for him. All that time, and his father had evidently understood. Understood—perhaps even had experienced something similar himself once, before he’d taken to denying who he was—and had never bloody said anything! 

 _Why?!_ Dorian wanted to shout at him. _Why did you never try to help me?_ But one childish outburst was more than enough; whether he liked or agreed with it, he could well imagine his father's reasoning. He thought—he hoped—that he still knew the man well enough to deduce that much. 

Pragmatic almost to a fault and raised to be an exemplary magister, Halward had never shirked his duty to the Imperium or to his House. He likely didn't know how to do that. Encouraging his son to follow his heart would have gone nowhere—there were no avenues in Tevinter for doing such a thing that led to success. He might have counseled ignoring or suppressing it, and indeed he had the few times they’d spoken to each other about Dorian’s unwillingness to bed women like a _proper_ man, but commiserating on the flaws of playing the game would have been a weakness. He had never seen the point of wasting time on something that could not be changed when there were so many things that could be. 

He'd likely thought he'd been doing Dorian a favor all those years. And when his stubborn, foolhardy son had continued to disregard his advice and rebel in ways that damaged the family's reputation and cost House Pavus its standing with the magisterium and the Archon, he'd obviously acted in desperation. Perhaps not, as Dorian had assumed, out of malice and self-interest, but in a wholly misguided attempt to help him come to terms with a life he couldn’t stomach living. 

"It would have changed nothing," Halward replied, with the slightest of head shakes.

"It changes everything!" 

Forgiveness for what his father had attempted to do to him still wasn't in the cards. Dorian would not, _could not_ , forgive being kept a veritable prisoner for months with the intention of forcing him to undergo a ritual in which he had desire to take part. But it cast the whole mess into an altogether different light. One that left him feeling such a complicated tangle of emotions that he had no idea how to begin working through it. Just like he didn't know how he was supposed to feel about the years Halward had kept secret the one thing Dorian had once so desperately needed to hear.

He needed a drink before he could start dealing with any of it. He needed a _few_ drinks. The whole blighted tavern of drinks. And then, _maybe_ he could start. 

"No, it does not." Halward lifted an eyebrow. "Though perhaps you will. In time." 

"I..." Uncertain how to take what sounded like both a compliment and a vote of confidence in what he always assumed his father viewed as an unattainable dream, Dorian trailed off into silence. 

Halward didn't say anything immediately, apparently waiting to let him finish his thought. Dorian couldn't do it, he didn't even know where he had been trying to go with it, and when that became obvious, his father continued. "I cannot change my own life and I ought not to have thought to change yours. The mistakes of the past cannot be undone, but I've no wish to repeat them. And I could not countenance leaving your well-being in the hands of someone less skilled or invested in your future. That is why I'm here." 

The spiteful, petty part of him didn't want to accept it at face value. He wanted to challenge him, deny what he'd heard for lies and insist that Halward was attempting to manipulate him into forgiveness. It was the simple, easy response, the one that would make him feel justified in his refusal to speak with him more than absolutely necessary. And it was that more than Halward's words or delivery that convinced him that it was the truth. Luxurious as his life had been, Dorian would have never considered it _easy_ and joining the Inquisition hadn't changed that. That it was difficult only served to make the whole situation real. 

Just because he believed him, however, did not mean that he wished to continue to discuss it or even think about it. There was still the not-inconsequential matter of having been absent for nearly a year, doing Maker knew what with a bunch of _Fereldans_. That was what he needed to focus on. Disturbing though it would undoubtedly be, he knew it wouldn't be as emotionally draining as attempting to sort through his complicated, conflicting feelings about his father. 

"Are you able to restore my lost memories or must I wait for them to return on their own?" 

Predictably, Halward didn't press the issue of their strained relationship or the reason for it. "I can do so." 

Dorian took a deep breath and slowly released it. "Well, let's get on with it, then. I suspect that I'm as ready as I'll ever be." 

A quarter of an hour later, as his lost memories filled his mind, those ten, stupidly naive words came back to haunt him. 

* * *

Bright sunlight poured in through the nearby window, forcing Cullen to immediately squint against the blinding brilliance and roll over onto his other side to avoid staring into it. Unless there was one creeping up on him, he'd managed to wake without a headache and he meant to keep it that way for as long as possible. And it seemed as though he might be relatively successful at it, too, right up until the moment his eyes adjusted to the shadows and he caught sight of the Inquisitor sitting in a rickety chair not five feet from his bed.

A vicious looking bruise darkened the man's left eye, made worse by the swollen flesh around it exaggerating the old scar that marred that side of his face. He'd clearly suffered a split lip as well, though the wound had scabbed over and was in the process of healing. When last Cullen had seen him mere hours ago, he'd been fine, which meant that either he'd taken an unfortunate fall during the night or he'd been attacked. 

Before Cullen could follow the instinctive urge to shove himself up and attend to whatever miscreant had dared attack the Inquisitor, he lifted his right eyebrow and asked, "How are you feeling?" 

Cullen was expecting his tone to be in line with his appearance. Urgent, perhaps, or aggravated. Possibly pained. But all he sounded was curious. Almost warily so. 

"Should I not be asking that of you?" he returned, sitting up with less haste than he felt like moving. "What happened? Were—" Abruptly, he realized that the insignificant images his peripheral vision was providing him were not as unimportant as he thought. "Are we in _Skyhold?"_  

That couldn't be right. They were still in the Frostback Basin, days away from the fortress. Unless they'd fallen through an eluvian in the night, they couldn't possibly have made it back so quickly. He cast one quick, bewildered look around and sure enough, there were familiar stone walls around them and the mismatched furniture so characteristic of the ancient, time-worn place. It was not his quarters, that much Cullen knew immediately, nor any with which he was familiar, and that begged the question of why he'd woken up in a strange room hundreds of miles from where he expected to be.

Tension that he only noticed once it was gone faded from Lavellan's face. _What in Andraste's name is going on?_

"So you remember me, then," he remarked, sounding inexplicably relieved. 

It made no sense. Cullen stared at him, thoroughly confused, as the first twinges of tension began tightening the back of his neck. In an absent-minded attempt to stave off a headache, he reached back and tried to rub it out. 

"Of course. I—Forgive me, Inquisitor, but I've no idea what's going on at present." That he had to acknowledge his faulty comprehension bothered him almost as much as the disorientation did, though he knew it was best to just admit it and get on with it.

"Everything's fine now," Lavellan told him, raising a hand in a gesture that was plainly meant to be calming. "We were attacked by Venatori agents while leaving the Basin. You were—" He seemed to falter there and struggle to find the words he wanted. "Injured. I suppose that's as good a term as any. That's why you don't remember the journey."

No doubt Cullen was supposed to feel reassured at hearing that whatever misfortune they'd encountered was behind them, but all it did was ratchet the alarm up another notch. "Were there any casualties?"

"Yes. The guards on duty were killed." Either something showed on his face or Lavellan just knew him too well, for he hastened to add, "We've already notified their families. There's nothing left for you to do in that regard."

 _I'll be the judge of that._ First, he would speak to the surviving soldiers and determine what had happened so that future attacks might be avoided. Then, he would find out when the families had been contacted and if their pay and belongings had been sent on to them. He trusted the Inquisitor and his own lieutenants, of course, but the Inquisition was a large organization that took on a great deal of work. Sometimes, without any intentional malice on anyone's part, things fell through the cracks or were forgotten. It wouldn't be the first time something of that nature occurred and it wouldn't be the last, but the military and the soldiers were his purview. What mistakes were made were his to fix.

After Kirkwall, Cullen was unwilling to wash his hands of his responsibility once tasks were delegated to others. 

Resolving to worry about it once he had more details, he asked, "What happened?" 

Lavellan didn't mince words. "We believe I was the target, however during the battle, you and Dorian were struck with a spell. At the time we weren't aware of it or what it did. All we knew was that you and Dorian had disappeared in the confusion and our search parties couldn't locate either of you. Over time, we came to understand that it had stolen your memories."

Cullen had lived through a Blight. He'd witnessed horrors the likes of which ordinary people could not imagine. He'd watched the sky be torn asunder _twice_ and had fought against a creature that ought not to have existed. Yet for all his experience with magic and strange situations, what he was hearing now sounded just a bit ludicrous. Like something out of one of Varric's ridiculous novels. Not something that would actually happen in real life. 

"How is that even possible?" He didn't disbelieve Lavellan, but Maker, it was difficult to swallow. 

The Inquisitor hesitated, a slight frown compressing his lips as his gaze slipped sideways. It was an expression that Cullen had seen often enough across the war table whenever Lavellan was presented with information he didn't know how to process or when he had some of his own that he knew would not be met favorably by any of his advisors. Considering the circumstances, Cullen suspected that it was the latter giving him pause at that moment. And that didn't bode well for him.

When Lavellan took a deeper than normal breath, Cullen found himself unconsciously bracing against whatever was coming. He tried to convince himself to relax, but his instincts weren't having it.

"It was blood magic," Lavellan finally told him, with a straightforwardness that Cullen appreciated even as his skin crawled uncomfortably.

Over the course of time they'd served the Inquisition together, Cullen and the Inquisitor had become close enough that he considered him a friend. He was direct, he was honest about his opinions, he had neither prejudice against humans nor an inclination to use his pointed ears to play the victim, and his patience for politics was on par with Cullen's. Although he didn't like speaking of Kinloch or Kirkwall and would go out of his way to avoid the subjects, Cullen _had_ discussed some of the things that had happened with Lavellan. He hadn't gone into excruciating detail about any of it, but he had told him enough to explain the way he often reacted to topics like magic, the Fade, mages in general, lyrium, templars, and demons.

He knew that Cullen was unlikely to take well hearing that he'd been subjected to blood magic again and was obviously preparing for a negative reaction. Cullen did his best not to give him an overly dramatic one.

Clenching his fingers into the bedclothes, Cullen forced himself to breathe through panic that he knew was irrational. As unpleasant as whatever had happened was, it was over now. He was safe in Skyhold. There were no untoward side-effects. He couldn't even remember any of it. _There's no reason to give into fear and make a fool of yourself. It's over. Conduct yourself with dignity, for Andraste's sake._

"Do you know what happened then?" he asked, not especially _wanting_ to know but knowing that he needed to hear it.

Because of Kinloch, he was expecting a tale of torture and hardship. Of being kept prisoner by the remnants of the Venatori and experimented on much the same as those Lavellan had seen in Corypheus' bleak future had been. Of horrors that would make the odd blankness in his mind a merciful blessing for which he could thank the Maker.

Perhaps Lavellan knew it or suspected something along those lines, for his mouth quirked the tiniest fraction upward. "You and Dorian spent nearly a year living in a village called Wutherford."

It took a few repetitions of what he'd said through his mind for Cullen to make sense of it. Stunned, he stared at Lavellan with wide, disbelieving eyes. "I beg your pardon?"

A _year_? He'd been under the effects of the spell and missing for _an entire year_? That alone was mindbogglingly difficult to accept, to say nothing of the fact that he'd apparently been living in a place he well knew from his past with one of his best friends. And it was because of _blood magic_? He couldn't wrap his mind around it.

For the first time since he woke up, Lavellan broke into a smile. "Crazy, right? You should hear Varric. He's been pestering me about interviewing the two of you since we recovered you. It sounds like he wants to write a book about it."

Cullen didn't shudder in horror, but he felt the impulse to do so rather strongly. He'd already been unwillingly placed in one idiotic novel. He didn't want to find his way into another as a main character. Especially not as Varric would write him. 

"I know that village," he said, struggling to find firm ground upon which he could collect his whirling thoughts into something constructive and useful. "When I was stationed at Ferelden's Circle, I used to go there during my free time."

"I wish I'd known that a year ago," Lavellan dryly returned. "It would have made finding the two of you easier."

He shook his head. "I don't understand. I haven't changed so much in a decade. Some of the villagers ought to have recognized me."

Lavellan snorted in what sounded like amusement. "Oh, they recognized you, all right. The whole bloody village recognized you. They thought the two of you had left the Inquisition and were looking to make a new start. Any time one of our agents passed through asking after you, they pretended they'd never seen you and sent them away."

He didn't begin to know what to say to that. He'd gotten on well with the villagers and had considered many of them to be friends, but he couldn't imagine what he'd done to inspire the kind of loyalty that would not only make them remember him for such a length of time, but also prompt them to hide him and lie to the Inquisition.

Opening his mouth, Cullen found that the words weren't there and shut it again.

"It was luck we found you," Lavellan continued, waving a hand dismissively. "We started to hear rumors that you were in the northern part of Ferelden. A friend of Varric's heard from a dwarf in Orzammar...." He rolled his eyes. "You get the idea. A group of us went out to search. Cassandra and I were in the tavern there when you came in." With a wry grin, he gestured to his face. "You weren't happy to see me."

"I—What?" Cullen flat out gaped at him. "I _assaulted_ you?"

Surely he hadn't done that. In addition to being his friend, Lavellan was his superior officer. The last time he'd moved against a superior officer... Well, that didn't bear thinking about at the moment.

Despite the mess Cullen had evidently made of his face, Lavellan didn't appear to be terribly put out by it. "I'm uncertain whether it was the effect of the spell or something else. Either way, you and Dorian believed that we meant you harm. You were defending yourself." A beat, then he added, "The villagers helped."

With every word, the tale became more outlandish. Cullen rubbed his hand against his forehead, struggling to find equilibrium among the conflicting wash of horror, shame, and disbelief. "Was anyone else hurt?"

"Not severely. Cassandra incapacitated you and we learned from our lack of caution. We put Dorian to sleep before we tried to approach him." 

"Why can't I remember any of this?"

"Dorian's father—Ah, he's been here for a while. He came because of Dorian's disappearance. It's been a—" Lavellan caught himself with a wince. "Anyway, he's the one who removed the spell. Because of, well, everything, he thought it would be best to restore your memories in stages. To make processing what happened a little easier on you."

A sound strategy in theory, Cullen couldn't decide if it was working in practice. Nothing about any of it was particularly _easy_ to digest. "How is Dorian?"

"Good. I think." Lavellan grimaced slightly, then waved his hands before Cullen would respond. "That wasn't very encouraging. Sorry. He's fine. All of his memories were restored. I just haven't had time to really speak with him about it. He and his father had some kind of _talk_ after he woke up and he said that he needed some time to himself."

While that wasn't the best news, it certainly wasn't bad. Cullen had only the most rudimentary understanding of Dorian's difficulties with his family. He'd mentioned an estrangement with his father, but he hadn't gone into detail and out of respect for his wishes, Cullen hadn't pressed for more. If the elder Pavus had come to Skyhold during Dorian's absence, surely that meant that whatever had transpired between them, he still cared deeply for his son. And that was _something._ It had to be.

"Well—" he began, only for Lavellan to cut him off.

"Cullen, there's something you need to know." As a prickle of dread crept up Cullen's spine, Lavellan sighed. "The spell the Venatori cast, the only way to remove it was through blood magic."

He'd known it when he'd first heard what had befallen him, his experience with mages and magic had taught him that much, but he hadn't acknowledged it. He hadn't wanted to dwell on the subject at all. Down that way lay madness.

Slowly, he dipped his chin in a short nod. "I had assumed that that had been the only recourse for its removal."

"I thought as much." But there was a weight to Lavellan's tone that suggested that wasn't the end of it. "It's just—Magister Pavus, he's going to need to cast it again to restore your missing memories."

Deep down, Cullen recognized that he knew that too. The hole in his memories was proof enough that the spell hadn't been complete. But it was one thing to have blood magic cast on him unaware. It was quite another to sit there willingly through it, even if it was meant to be benign and helpful. Just thinking about it now made his blood run cold and the headache that was trying to gain traction beneath his skull throb in warning.

It would be cowardice to refuse to undergo the spell. Cullen wasn't a coward and he wasn't comfortable living with a year-long gap in his memories. He wanted to know what had happened. He wanted to remember this life he'd evidently spent among friends. To choose to leave it forgotten was unworthy of both the people of Wutherford and of Dorian. And yet...

"Must it be now?" He hated himself for the question and the weakness—the cowardice—it revealed, but he couldn't do it. Not now. He needed time. He needed to prepare himself for it so that he wouldn't have a shameful breakdown in the middle of the spell.

But Lavellan, Maker bless him, didn't judge him for it. "Of course not! No. I know it's difficult. It's—Even I'm not happy that we have someone actively practicing blood magic around, regardless of the intention behind it. Take some time. He's not scheduled to leave until the end of the week, so you've got a few days.

The relief he felt at that was just as shameful as his refusal to just get it done. "Thank you. I—"

"Don't worry about it," Lavellan interrupted, shaking his head. "Let's just forget about it for now, all right? There's an army, and I mean that literally, looking forward to seeing you again." He stood up with a small smile. "If you're feeling up to it, I can come along. You might need a bodyguard to keep some of them at bay."

If he meant to lighten the mood, he was successful. Cullen chuckled softly, and buoyed by the prospect of having something to do other than lay around obsessing about what was to come, he got out of bed. There was a clean set of clothes sitting at the foot of it waiting for him. "If you don't mind taking a detour through the kitchens so that I might get something to drink first, I'll take you up on the offer." 

Lavellan slapped him on the shoulder. "Consider it done. I might have to get one myself."

As he dressed, Cullen came to the decision that after he saw to his men, he would pay Dorian a visit. Even if he was turned away, he wanted his friend to know that he was concerned about him. Perhaps when he was ready, they could talk about what happened and maybe, if Dorian didn't think him a colossal fool, he could offer some advice about the spell his father was going to have to cast on him. If nothing else, Cullen hoped that going into it prepared would make it easier to endure with dignity. 

"All right," he said, turning to the Inquisitor. "I'm ready." 

Opening the door, Lavellan shot him a sly wink. "You say that now. Let me know if you still feel that way in an hour." 

Laughing, Cullen followed him out into the hallway. _How bad can it possibly be?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For status updates and general discussion about my fics, check out my Twitter: http://twitter.com/ereliswrites. I update it a lot more than my Tumblr.


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